Professor Oga Steve Abah
Director, Institute of Development Resources,
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

Professor Abah is an expert on Nigeria. He has researched issues of social cleavages in Kaduna in connection with a Ford Foundation-funded project – Building Bridges: promoting and consolidating peaceful co-existence in Nigeria - which in 2002 interviewed over 100 people on communal violence, using questionnaires, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. Abah’s doctoral research was on theatre for development and he has been using theatrical productions in development work in Nigeria and researching their effects for several decades.

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Dr Colette Harris
Senior Lecturer, School of International Development,
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Dr. Harris specialises in gender and development issues, particularly in relation to Muslim communities in Asia and Africa, one focus being on questions of violence. For over ten years she has been researching and carrying out development projects on gender, identity, violence, and Islam in Central Asia. She is currently studying linkages between gender identities and violent conflict in Northern Uganda, another religiously focused setting, in connection with the EU-funded MICROCON project. Since late 2005 Harris has been involved in research on issues around violence, gender and citizenship in Kaduna. She has been doing gender-related research and community development work in other parts of Africa since 2001. 

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Email:  colette.harris@uea.ac.uk