Paul Jackson is a political economist working on post-conflict reconstruction. He is Professor of African Politics in the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham, UK, and currently a Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Gender and African Studies at the University of the Free State, South Africa. His extensive experience on governance in Sierra Leone led him into conflict analysis and security sector reform. He is currently an advisor to the Governance and Social Development Resource Centre and programme leader on the Sustainable Development Programme for the British Academy.

Gareth J. Wall oversees the research and knowledge management activities of the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, focusing on ensuring good practice lessons from CLGF programmatic work and from our ministerial and local government membership to inform policy and practice across the Commonwealth. He is concurrently undertaking doctoral research on deliberative democracy for human development in the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham, UK, and the Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata, India.