Speaker biographies
Keynote address
Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP, Secretary of State for International Development
Andrew Mitchell was appointed Secretary of State for International Development on 12 May 2010.
As Shadow Secretary of State for International Development from 2005 to 2010, Andrew Mitchell led his Party’s campaign to tackle global poverty, having seen first-hand the impact that deprivation, conflict and oppression have on the lives of ordinary people around the world. After serving as a UN peacekeeper in Cyprus in the 1970s, he went on to work and travel extensively in Africa and Asia, experiences that have stayed with him throughout his time as an MP.
For the last three years Andrew Mitchell has organised Project Umubano, a social action project where approximately 100 volunteers work on a variety of development projects in Rwanda.
The role of Northern and Southern civil society in African development
Panel:
H. E Bience Gawanas
H. E Bience Gawanas has been the African Union Commissioner for Social Affairs since 2003. Her work involves advocacy and the coordination of policies and programmes on issues including health, migration, population, drug control, social welfare of vulnerable groups, labour and employment.
She has been appointed as the Sponsor for the AU Commission Institutional Transformation Project. She also served as a member of the Global Task team on Improving Coordination Amongst Multilateral Institutions and Donors and also served as a member of the Global Steering Committee on Universal Access to HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment. She is a member of the International Board of Trustees of the African Child Policy Forum, an African NGO based in Ethiopia.
Ingrid Srinath
Ingrid Srinath became Secretary General of CIVICUS in 2008. CIVICUS is an influential global network of organizations at local, national, regional and international levels, dedicated to strengthening civil society throughout the world especially in areas where participatory democracy and citizens' freedom of association are threatened. She serves on the board of the IANGO Accountability Charter and on the World Economic Forum NGO Advisory Group.
Michael Anderson
Michael Anderson joined DFID in 2001 and has been Director General for Policy and Global Issues since April 2010. He oversees Policy, Research and Evidence, International Finance, International Relations, and Trade. Divisions under his lead were responsible for a budget of £4.3 billion in 2010-11. He was previously in charge of DFID’s programmes in India, the Middle East, North Africa and Iraq, the DFID policy team on fragile states and DFID’s programmes on justice, security, and rule of law.
Moderator
Mike Wooldridge
Mike Woolridge is World Affairs Correspondent for BBC News. Since joining the BBC in 1970 he covered numerous significant international events. He has served as the BBC’s East Africa correspondent, and the South Africa correspondent. He reported on the Ethiopian famine, and civil wars and refugee crises in Sudan, Somalia, Angola and Mozambique, amongst others. In 1990 he became religious affairs correspondent, in particular exploring religion and conflict. In recent years he has spent much time in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and covered the current unprecedented Pakistan floods.
