Advisory Panel

Our advisory panel provides an vital additional layer of quality assurance to the CIVICUS Monitor. It plays a central risk management role by providing an independent check on the information, analysis and ratings published by the Monitor. These are our current Advisory Panel members:

Betty Barkha

Betty Barkha is a professional researcher with over a decade of experience in research, advocacy and development across the Pacific and Asia. She has been involved with various development organisations in Asia and the Pacific region since 2009. She has previously served as an elected member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Women in Development (AWID) and the CIVICUS Alliance. Betty also serves as an advisor to FRIDA Young Feminist Fund, FHI 360 and the Global Resilience Fund. She holds Bachelor's and Master’s degrees in Arts and is currently concluding her PhD at Monash University with the Centre for Gender, Peace and Security (Monash GPS).

Nawa Villy

Nawa Villy Sitali is an African Grassroots Activist and Human Rights Practitioner with a strong education background and extensive skill & experience in participatory democracy, youth leadership & local governance, civic leadership, movement building, youth organising and mobilising and advocacy & lobbying. He is a Co-founder of Youth4Parliament, A Social Movement, an award-winning grassroot movement In Zambia and Malawi that seeks to increase the participation of young people in politics and to increase the representation of young people in elective positions with a focus on the parliamentary level. The movement uses organising and mobilising to reach its goals.

Deanne Uyangoda

Deanne Uyangoda is a human rights lawyer and researcher - currently with Front Line Defenders as the protection coordinator for South Asia and Mongolia, based in Colombo Sri Lanka.

Mireille Tushiminina

Ms Tushiminina serves as the Managing Director of the African Development Solutions Lab Experts (ADSL-E) where she has focused extensively on monitoring and reporting on various gross human rights violations by armed force groups, the ongoing Anglophone crisis (in Cameroon) and socioeconomic dimensions of conflict in African fragile states. Prior to that, and for over 20 years, she held senior management level positions in international development, conflict prevention & resolution, peacebuilding, political reforms, women's peace and security, and gender & democratization. In the past decade, Ms. Tushiminina held various positions, including with the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA) as the Gender and Political Affairs Advisor, the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa based in Buea, and the Shalupe Foundation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and also consulted for Africans Rising, the National Human Rights Commission, the American Bar Association, Freedom House and other human rights institutions. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Northeastern University, a Master's degree from Davenport University, a Diploma in Rule of Law and Policy from Harvard Law School, an Executive degree from Oxford Saïd Business School and a Diploma in Mediation and Negotiation from the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael. 

Silke Pfeiffer

Director of the Human Rights and Peace Unit at Bread for the World (Germany) with a strong focus on civic space. She has previously worked with the International Crisis Group and Transparency International on conflict, human rights and anti-corruption in Latin America.