Adriana Allen is Prof of Development Planning and Urban Sustainability at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London, and has over 30 years of experience in research, postgraduate teaching and consultancy undertakings in 25 countries across the Global South. Through the lens of risk, sanitation, water, land, food and health, her work looks at the interface between everyday city-making practices and planned interventions and their capacity to generate transformative spaces, places, and social relations.

Pascale Hofmann is an urban environmental planner and associate professor at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London, and has over 15 years of experience conducting research and consultancy work in the global south and Europe. She has expertise in water supply and sanitation in urban and peri-urban spaces, adequate and equitable access to services and the sustainable use of resources, everyday trajectories of the urban poor and actionable knowledge supporting pathways out of poverty.

Wilbard Kombe is a Professor of Urban Land Management, and the former Director of the Institute of Human Settlements Studies at Ardhi University, Dar es Salaam. Kombe has extensive consulting experience with institutions such as the UN-Habitat, the World Bank, the Danish International Development Ageny, and Sida. His research focuses on urban land management, governance of informal urbanisation, and governance of water and sanitation in peri-urban, urban poverty and basic infrastructure services delivery.

Braima Koroma is a lecturer at the Institute of Geography and Development Studies, School of Environmental Sciences, Njala University and the Director of Research and Training at SLURC. Braima has over 15 years of experience as a lecturer, researcher, consultant, trainer and facilitator, in the areas of urban livelihoods, the city economy, resilience, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, urban planning and development, environmental management, and development impact evaluation.

Nelly Leblond is a research fellow at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London, with a background in geography and a focus on the distribution of environmental benefits and harms. She has worked on agricultural development, food security, waste management and structural violence, exploring the interactions between uneven socio-spatial relations and the politics of knowledge production.

Trained as a town and regional planner and community organiser, Prof Colin Marx led South Africa’s largest urban NGO in the post-Apartheid period. As both an academic at UCL’s Development and Planning Unit and a practitioner his work focuses on the interactions between differing forms of in/formalities in African cities, urban land dynamics and the possibilities for intervening in these in ways that are more supportive of poor women and men’s livelihoods.

Dr Tim Ndezi is a development engineer with a civil and water engineering background and a PhD from Loughborough University UK (2007), focused on a partnerships approach to improving water and sanitation services within informal settlements. He created the Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI) 15 years ago and works with communities to achieve a holistic development.

Richard Prosper is a community development practitioner and a Research Assistant at the Institute of Human Settlements Studies, Ardhi University Tanzania. He has experience in primary and secondary social sciences research, and has worked with the Bank of Tanzania, Read International, Deposit insurance Board and World Vision Tanzania. He is passionate about participatory community approaches and good governance in promoting socio-economic development.

Catarina Simões Mavila is a social anthropologist with experience in project coordination and management, and research methods involving qualitative, quantitative, and participative, data collection. With Austral (formerly COWI Mozambique) since 2014, she has worked on Sexual and Reproductive Rights, Gender policies, Youth assessments, Environmental and Agricultural questions, and Education in Mozambique.

Ibrahim Bakarr Bangura is a Junior Researcher at SLURC with a BSc in Rural Development Studies from Njala University. He has worked with the Amazonian Initiative Movement as a Facilitator and was part of the SLURC team working with ASF-UK’s Change By Design Methodology on Community Action Area Plans (CAAP). He facilitated Community-Led Data Collection for Informal Settlement Profiling workshops and data collection, and is a member of Urban KNOW.

Julian Walker is a social development and gender equality practitioner/ researcher and an associate professor at the UCL’s Development Planning Unit, with a background in social anthropology and experience in: gender policy and planning, disability, and child rights; urban displacement, including involuntary resettlement and forced eviction; and pro-poor livelihoods and employment rights. He is interested in how gender and social diversity relate to citizenship practices.

Hélder Domingos has a post-graduate degree in Public Health and a degree in Geography, with over 10 years of experience in the area of WASH - Water and Sanitation and SWM - Solid Waste Management in Mozambique. Based in Beira City, he is the co-founder and executive director of the Association Face de Água e Saneamento. His work over the years has been focused on urban development in peri-urban areas.

Festo D Makoba is a Water and Sanitation engineer at the Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI), supporting low-income communities in Tanzania to innovate and implement low cost solutions for Water, Sanitation as well as Housing through the promotion of low cost Environmental friendly Construction material. Festo has been working with numerous organisations including Ardhi University, IIED, UCL, Lyra in Africa, WaterAid Tanzania, Amref Africa, UNICEF, Cities Alliances, SDI, CDI DAWASA and MWAUWASA.

Claudy Vouhé has worked as a gender and development expert for over 25 years, supporting gender mainstreaming in public policies and programmes of government bodies, international organisations, research institutions, NGOs and women’s local organisations. She taught on the DPU Gender Policy and Planning Programme for 5 years, founded L’être égale in 2012 to promote gender equality in France and abroad, and is a co-founding member of Genre en Action, a francophone (mainly Africa-based) gender research and advocacy network created in 2003.

Astrid Mujinga is a journalist, writer, and the president of the Cord of Congolese Women for the Equilibrium of Households/Gender in Action (CFCEM/GA). For over a decade, Astrid and the CFCEM/GA have actively promoted women’s rights, gender equality in policies and projects, as well as advocated against violence and discrimination.

Sheila Salum is an environmental, public health specialist and research fellow at Ifakara Health Institutes (IHI). She has been engaging on research and consultancy works with institutions such as Institute of Human Settlements Studies at Ardhi University, National Environment Management Council, Eco Services (T) Ltd on various research activities involving environmental health, water and sanitation, community development and social welfare matters for livelihood improvements.

Stella Stephen is a Monitoring and Evaluation expert who has worked in the field of Water, Sanitation and Climate change in Urban areas for more than 10 years. She has experience working on access to Water and Sanitation in urban informal settlements, Adaptation to climate change and building resilience, Community organizing and engagement through partnership and participatory approach in Urban areas.

Amadu Kamara Labor is Infrastructure and Services Research Officer at the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC). He holds a BA in Development Studies from the University of Makeni and a BSC in Agricultural Education from the Ernest Bai Koroma University of Science and Technology. Amadu has been working with FEDURP and SLURC in Freetown’s informal settlements as a data collector, research assistant, an intern on the ESD Learning Exchange with DPU-UCL. He is currently an active member of the Federation of Urban and Rural Poor (FEDURP) with strong research interests.

Marcia Saica is a member of the Association FACE for Water and Sanitation, working in Beira Mozambique. Previously, she worked at the rural hospital of Nhamatanda. She also volunteered with the Red Cross of Canada and Finlandia in the emergency responses following cyclone Idai, in the area of water and sanitation.

Francis Reffell is a social justice and development professional. He is the Founder and Director of Centre of Dialogue on Human Settlement and Poverty Alleviation (CODOHSAPA), and also pioneered the establishment of Federation of Urban and Rural Poor (FEDURP) in Freetown. This is an alliance of Slum Dwellers International (SDI), which is a global network of NGO professionals and slum dwellers federations that support both local and global actions to improve on the welfare and living conditions of deprived population and localities. Within this space, Francis has dedicated his career to working on creating the space and voice of the poor and marginalised population and localities, which commands the value of hope restoration, and positive change and transformation.

Jamiatu holds a degree in Community Development Studies and is an active member of the Federation for Urban and Rural Poor (FEDURP) in Freetown, Sierra Leone. She supports the OVERDUE project and especially the Freetown team by mobilizing community members, facilitating workshops, contributing to methodological propositions and reflections, as well as performing translation, transcription, and surveying.

Ndéye Penda Diouf is a gender expert, economist and coordinator at the Observatory for Gender and Development of Saint Louis Senegal (OGDS). OGDS is an autonomous public observatory created in 2012 in Saint Louis Senegal. Its objectives are to facilitate (1) the exchange of experiences and practices around the equality between women and men, (2) the implementation of a gender sensitive approach in local projects and institutions, (3) as well as advocacy for the integration of gender in development policies.

Tatu Mtwangi Limbumba is a sernior research fellow at the Institute for Human Settlements Studies at Ardhi University, and a researcher of the OVERDUE Mwanza team. She has worked on universalizing water and sanitation coverage in urban areas in Tanzania, and on housing options and residential location choices in Dar Es Salaam.

Angèle Koué is a gender expert and the president of Genre, Parité et Leadership Féminin (GEPALEF). GEPALEF was created in 2012 to defend women and girls' rights, promote women’s leadership, address violence against women and girls and support projects to empower women and promote gender equality. Through GEPALEF, Angèle supports women in a diversity of sectors and value chains, fosters networks of working women and entrepreneurs and contributes to the inclusion of gender equality in numerous development projects.

Jeannine Ramarokoto is a member of SiMIRALENTA, a center and observatory for the promotion of of gender equality in Madagascar. Since 2007, SiMIRALENTA has actively worked to tackle inequalities between women and men.

Mina Rakotoarindrasata is a member of SiMIRALENTA, a center and observatory for the promotion of of gender equality in Madagascar and Genre en action, an international francophone network for the equality of women and men in development. Since 2007, SiMIRALENTA has actively worked to tackle inequalities between women and men.

Dr Robin Bloch is a Technical and Business Development Director for Sustainable Urban Development at COWI. He is an urban planner and economist, with 30 years of international project design, management, and implementation experience, principally in sub-Saharan Africa. He is currently a visiting scholar at the University of West England, Bristol; the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; and York University, Toronto.

Ilundi Cabral is a social anthropologist with a master degree in migration studies. She has over a decade of work experience in social research for Austral (formerly COWI Mozambique). She has also implemented projects in the field of child protection for Save the Children in Mozambique. Over the past years she has managed the implementation of surveys and qualitative studies in Mozambique related to sexual and reproductive health, education, agriculture and social impact assessment.

Ana Leão is a researcher on issues of violence, conflict, youth, gender, and human security. She undertook policy research in Lusophone African countries focusing on human security related issues and provided support to institutions implementing recommendations arising from the research work, including the establishment of civil society networks.

Nadine is a research fellow at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit at University College London. Her background as an architect & urban practitioner has given her significant experience in water and sanitation projects ranging from monitoring of service delivery, supporting community teams to advocate for change to implementing public realm upgrades to improve safety. For the last 5 years she has worked in South Africa and Uganda delivering informal settlement upgrading projects that alleviate poverty, build resilience, and promote spatially just cities.

Alban is a PhD researcher at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, where he explores the conditions of an expansion of the political space for urban agriculture justice and food democracy, and the resulting democratic effects produced by different trajectories of urban agriculture.

Emmanuel is a multidisciplinary lecturer in Urbanisation and Sustainable Development at The Bartlett Developing Planning Unit, University College London (UCL). His research interests focus on studying the governance, policy and institutional aspects of disaster risk and risk management, climate change adaptation and resilience, and community-led development in low-income urban centres, particularly in Africa. Emmanuel has previously worked on large research consortia such as the DFID/ESRC funded £3.3million ‘Urban Africa Risk Knowledge’ (Urban ARK project) and the GCRF-funded £7million ‘Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality’ (KNOW project) leading research on risk governance and co-production of knowledge and urban practice to address inequalities and development deficits. Emmanuel regularly provides technical inputs to sustainable development policy formulation & implementation processes and has worked with the AUDA-NEPAD, UNDP, UNEP and UN-Habitat. He is a contributing author to the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report on Climate Change (Working Group 2 – on impact, adaptation and vulnerability) and also serves as a Technical Advisor on urban resilience to the African Union. Emmanuel has an LLM in Environmental Law and Policy, and a PhD in Environmental Social Science both from the University of Kent, UK.