Education Specialists

Katherine Namuddu
Associate Director
Africa Regional Program
Rockefeller Foundation of New York

Katherine Namuddu is currently associate director for the Africa Regional Program of the Rockefeller Foundation of New York. Ms. Namuddu holds a doctorate in science education, a master of science in biology, and a master of arts in early childhood education from Columbia University in New York. She has taught at Makerere University, Kenyatta University, and the University of Nairobi where she did research in the teaching and learning of science and mathematics at primary and secondary school.

As an independent consultant, Ms. Namuddu worked in the mid 1980s with the Aga Khan Foundation on projects introducing information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the classroom in Kenya and with World Bank and USAID missions to develop strategies to rehabilitate the education system in Uganda. In the late 1980s to early 1990s Dr. Namuddu set up the Minds Across Africa school project in Uganda, which is still on-going, in an effort to encourage school children and teachers to write for publication. In addition, Dr. Namuddu has written several comic stories for children in collaboration with the Mazingira Institute in Kenya and has authored many research papers.

Since 1992 Dr. Namuddu has led the Rockefeller Foundation's program on Female Participation in African Education and is currently coordinating a new initiative on Quality Education for Social Transformation (QUEST) in African Education.

Penina Muhando Mlama
Executive Director
Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), Nairobi

Penina Muhando Mlama is a long-serving professor of theater arts at the University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. Currently she is on leave of absence as executive director of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), a pan-African non-governmental organization headquartered in Nairobi. With chapters in thirty-three countries in sub-Saharan Africa, FAWE is engaged in improving access, retention, and participation of girls in education in Africa. FAWE focuses on influencing education as well as undertaking demonstrative interventions to address identified constraints.

Ms. Mlama is part of the team that pioneered the theater-for-development movement in Africa, in which artistic creation is used by the community as a tool for education analysis of development challenges and a search for solutions. She has extensive experience using this approach in rural communities and schools in Tanzania and other African countries. She started the Tuseme (speak out) program, which is currently operating in 22 secondary schools in Tanzania, using the theater-for-development process to empower girls to overcome gender-related problems impacting negatively on their academic performance and personal development.

In her book Culture and Development: The Popular Theatre Approach in Africa (Uppsala, 1991), Ms. Mlama outlines some of her experiences in theater-for-development work. She has also published eight plays in Kiswahili and many articles in culture and development, theater in education, creative writing, gender, and girls’ education.

Ms. Mlama served as head of department, dean of the faculty of arts, and chief academic officer (deputy vice chancellor) at the University of Dar-es-Salaam and is member of many national and international boards, including chair for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Africa Region.

Ms. Mlama has also received several awards, including the Shaaban Robert Writers Award (1999) for her creative writing and the promotion of the Kiswahili language and the National Cultural ZeZe Award (2000) for her contribution in the promotion of African theater for education of children and youth.

Djibril Mama Debourou
Professor at the University Abomey-Calavi, Benin
Department of sciences of education

Djibril Debourou, native of Benin, is currently a professor at the National University of Benin. He has worked as an education specialist for ADEA since 1994 and participates in the activities of the Working Group on Sector Analysis.

Mr Debourou is also occupies political functions in his country as a delegate in the National Assembly of Benin since April, 1995.

Between 1993 and 1996, he worked as adviser for the NGO " AIDE ET ACTION ". He was the coordinator of a project in favor of education supported by the UNDP and UNESCO from 1989 to 1993.

Previously, he was professor at the superior teachers' training college of Porto Novo.
Dr Debourou holds a PHD in history and sciences of education from the University of Paris V in France.

Sibry JM. Tapsoba
Chief Education Specialist
African Development Bank (ADB), Abidjan

Sibry Tapsoba is currently the chief education specialist of the Central Operations Department at the African Development Bank headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Prior to joining the bank, he was senior program officer for social policy, senior program specialist for education, and regional director for West and Central Africa at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC-Canada) offices in Dakar, Senegal. He has taught at the Université de Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and was a consultant to several institutions. In addition, he has contributed actively in setting up and strengthening education research networks in West and Central Africa and in establishing a link between research and policy. In collaboration with education ministers in the Sahel countries, he initiated the Foundation Karanta to support nonformal education policies in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Senegal.

His most recent activities include a mobilization of existing expertise to reflect on the consequences for Africa of the brain drain and on designing strategies for creating opportunities for the African diaspora to contribute effectively to development.

Mr. Tapsoba has published several books and articles and is a member of several boards and international committees on education issues. He holds a Ph.D. in educational administration, organization and policy from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Journalists

Semgué Samba Kone
Manager of SNEPCI
Abidjan

Samba Kone is currently a consultant for UNAIDS in charge of a program for journalists who deal with health issues.

From 1995 to 2000, he chaired the Executive Board of the West African Newsmedia and Development Center (WANAD) based in Cotonou, Benin.

Since 1985, he has managed “Science et santé”, a chronicle on the national broadcasting corporation of Côte d’Ivoire.

Since 1995, he has been the Vice President of the Observatoire de la liberté de la presse, de l’éthique et de la déontologie (OLPED).

Mr. Kone holds several degrees in journalism from the Ecole supérieure de journalisme in Paris.

Brendan O'Malley, international editor
The Times Educational Supplement, London

After receiving a BA Honours degree in English Literature and Communications Studies at Liverpool University, Mr O'Malley spent four years editing publications on development and making documentaries in Africa and Asia for ActionAid. From 1987 he worked freelance for Campaign magazine, Business Magazine, New Statesman and The Times Educational Supplement before joining its staff as a supplements editor in 1993.

Mr O'Malley became international editor in 1998, commissioning stories from freelance correspondents around the world. He leads the paper's Education for All campaign, attended the Dakar World Education Forum and Commonwealth Education Ministers Conference in Edinburgh, and has reported first hand on education in developing countries across the world, from Afghanistan to Uganda. At the end of 2002, Mr O'Malley was seconded to UNESCO for two months, visiting India and Bangladesh, to produce a global report on worldwide attempts eradicate illiteracy, to mark the beginning of the United Nations Literacy Decade.

Mr O'Malley also lectures on a masters course on international conflict at Kingston University, London. He is co-author of an investigative documentary book, The Cyprus Conspiracy: America, Espionage and the Turkish Invasion (IB Tauris), which was shortlisted for the 1999 Orwell prize for political writing and was a Guardian book of the year.

Victor Adefela

Victor Olufemi Adefela was born on June 18, 1938. He had his primary and secondary school education in Nigeria. He later attended Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, USA, where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science/International Relations in 1964 and Columbia University, New York, where he earned a Master’s degree in Journalism in 1965.

Adefela began his journalism career as an information officer in the Federal Ministry of Information, Lagos, in July 1965. In 1968, he moved to the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, now Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, as a current affairs officer/news analyst and rose to the position of Controller of News in 1975. During this period, he was also a part-time lecturer at the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos.

He was appointed the editor-in-chief of the newly established News Agency of Nigeria in 1977 and directed the development of its editorial operations until September 1985 when he left to become a professor of journalism at Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA.

He was appointed Director of Information of the Pan-African News Agency in Dakar, Senegal, in November 1986, a position he held until April 1994 when he returned to Nigeria to become Special Adviser to the Minister of Information for one year before retiring from the Nigerian Public Service.

Adefela served as information consultant at the WHO African Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville and Harare continuously from 1996 to 2000. Since then, he has been Chief Consultant at Victor Communications Ltd in Lagos, undertaking short-term consultancies in information and communication for various organizations.

Francis Laloupo

Mr. Laloupo, a Benin national, has lived in France since 1974. He is a journalist by profession, serving as editor-in-chief of the monthly Le Nouvel Afrique Asie. Mr. Laloupo contributes to a number of journals, including Géopolitique Africaine, and teaches geopolitics at the French business school ESSEC. In addition to serving as chairman of the Observatoire des Réformes et Géopolitiques d’Afrique et Partenaires d’Europe (ORGAPE), he is the author of “La Conférence nationale au Bénin, un concept nouveau de changement de régime politique” (Benin’s National Conference: a new concept in changes of political regime).

Mr. Laloupo graduated from the Parisian journalism school Centre de Formation des Journalistes. He also holds a degree in economics and finance from the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers and a master’s degree in advanced international studies.

In addition, he lectures in a number of universities on topics such as communication techniques applied to decentralization policy, historical and current African politics, conflicts and conflict resolution, management of post-conflict situations, journalists and situations of political crisis, and the historicity of democratization processes in Africa.