dldouglas@isdafrica.org
Dr. Diane L. Douglas has considerable experience working with the AfDB, ADB, EBRD and WBG on ESIAs and SESAs in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. She serves as an Expert Advisor on climate change, disaster risk reduction, and indigenous and local knowledge for the IPBES, UNDP and UNEP, and contributes to UN policy documents that guide social and environmental policies globally. Dr. Douglas will contribute insights to how UN social and environmental policies influence the policies of African nations regarding engagement with LID communities in Africa.

jhaltschul@canelogroup.net
Dr. Jeffrey H. Altschul has been involved in over 1,000 cultural heritage management projects in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. He is a past-President of the SAA and RPA and is broadly published. Dr. Altschul organized and led the SAA-World Bank (WB) meeting on cultural heritage compliance in Latin America and led the SAA’s effort to revise the WB’s safeguards and InterAmerican Development Bank’s guidance on cultural heritage. He will provide insights on governmental and lending agencies views of ESIA consultation.

ibrahima.thiaw@ucad.edu.sn
Dr. Ibrahima Thiaw is a Professor of Archaeology Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) at the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar, Senegal. Dr. Thiaw has worked throughout Africa, serving as a consultant for ESIAs, and conducting research on community engagement, the politics of memory and identity and the long-term impacts of slavery and colonization in the making of the modern world. Dr. Thiaw brings an historical perspective to our analysis of ethnographic methods in East Africa.

gwait@isdafrica.org

Dr. Gerry Wait has over 40 years of experience in heritage management and has undertaken approximately 100 heritage assessments for ESIAs in over 25 countries, including several in Africa. Dr. Wait is often called-in to resolve conflict when projects have gone poorly (i.e., community uprisings) due to poor community engagement on large scale, multi-national development projects. Dr Wait brings the perspective of anthropologists serving as conflict resolution experts on ESIAs.

Elgidius Ichumbaki, Ph.D. Associate, is a professor of archaeology and heritage studies at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Dr. Ichumbaki’s studies anthropological theory and methodology in cultural heritage studies on the decolonization of African countries. He has considerable experience working with governments and the public on citizen science projects, established as capacity building initiatives in East Africa. Dr. Ichumbaki provides insights on the influence of anthropological theory on engagement with LID communities in East Africa.

Arlene K. Fleming, Associate has advanced degrees in archaeology and communication. For 30 years, she has developed projects bringing new financial resources, technologies and approaches to cultural heritage conservation and management for social and economic development. At the World Bank., Ms. Fleming participated In creating and/or overseeing investment projects for cultural heritage in Turkey, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, China, and Eritrea. Her responsibilities also included re-formulating the Bank’s policy for safeguarding cultural heritage through Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA). She has advised and trained Bank staff and client country officials in policy compliance. Ms. Fleming has written and lectured on various aspects of cultural heritage conservation during infrastructure development, climatic changes, armed conflict, occupation, migration and reconstruction. She has participated in cultural and natural heritage conservation and training sponsored by governments and by numerous organizations including: the World Monuments Fund, the Getty Conservation Institute, UNESCO, and the International Association for Impact Assessment.

Dr. Timpoko Hélène Kienon-Kabore, Associate is professor at the University Félix Houphouët-Boigny at ISAD (Institute of Anthropological Sciences of Development) in Cȏte d’Ivoire. She is an archaeologist, historian, anthropologist, specialist in African archaeology, history of techniques and traditional sciences of African societies south of the Sahara. Dr. Kienon-Kabore has considerable experience working with local, indigenous and descendent (LID) communities and on issues of forced and voluntary migration. Timpko has several publications in peer-reviewed journals and is widely respected internationally for her contributions to anthropological knowledge.

Sophia Labadi, Ph.D., Associate, is a Professor of Heritage at the University of Kent in the UK. Much of Professor Labadi’s research focuses on whether and how heritage sites and museums can address some of the most pressing global challenges, including social justice, gender equality or sustainable development. Her research is nourished by her experiences as consultant for international organizations and governments, including for UNESCO. Professor Labadi’s books include Rethinking Heritage for Sustainable Development (UCL Press, 2022); The Cultural Turn in International Aid (Routledge, 2019); Urban Heritage, Development and Sustainability (co-edited with Bill Logan, Routledge 2015); and UNESCO, Cultural Heritage and Outstanding Universal Value (AltaMira Press, 2012). Her work has received many prizes, including the 2022 European Archaeological Heritage Prize from the European Association of Archaeologists.

Ian Lilly, Ph.D., Associate. is an archaeologist and heritage practitioner who has advised government and industry across Australia and globally for 45 years. In addition to his widely published and influential scholarly research, he has worked with organizations as diverse as UNESCO and its statutory Advisory Bodies ICOMOS, IUCN and ICCROM, the World Bank Group and the Pentagon as well as private companies large and small in the extractives sector throughout Australia and internationally. Ian has led peak professional bodies at national, regional and global levels and has helped formulate government policy and legislation around the world. He will contribute his deep expertise with local, Indigenous and descendent communities as well as with heritage matters more generally, especially where they may intersect with the World Heritage framework.

Friedrich Lüth, Ph.D. Associate, is originally from Ghana and has a strong interest in protecting African heritage and ensuring project developers respect the interests of LID communities. He has worked throughout much of the world on issues of heritage preservation. From 2006 until February 2023, he served as Director of the German Archaeological Institute and brings the perspective of a major research institution that funds archaeological and ethnographic studies in Africa.