Mr. Gul is currently the executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies, a research and advocacy organization focused primarily on security and governance based in Islamabad. As a journalist, he has been reporting for various media such as Deutsche Welle (1989-2009), CNN (1998-2000), Hong Kong-based Star World TV, NHK, and National Public Radio in the United States; he also regularly files for Foreign Policy, Wall Street Journal, and The Friday Times (Lahore) on issues such as militancy, border regions, Afghanistan, and Indo-Pakistan relations. Besides offering advice as a consultant to foreign diplomatic missions and development sector organizations, he regularly appears as an analyst/expert on Al-Jazeera. Mr. Gul published his first book, The Unholy Nexus: Pak-Afghan Relations Under the Taliban, in 2002. His second book, The Al-Qaeda Connection–Taliban and Terror in Tribal Areas (Penguin-Viking India, 2009), profiles the evolution and nature of militancy in the Pakistani-Afghan border regions and how they fell under the influence of Al-Qaeda.

Ms. Imai obtained an M.A. in International and Public Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh in the United States. She has worked with Plan Japan, The Nippon Foundation, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Japan Mine Action Service, the International Peace Cooperation Headquarters of the Cabinet Office, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for program formulation and management in various sectors. Ms. Imai’s main interest is community development, civil-military coordination, peacebuilding and conflict prevention and disaster response. Her hobby is traveling and taking photographs.

Educated as a psychologist in the area of industrial and organizational psychology at Padjadjaran University and having a master’s degree in social work from the School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ms. Nainggolan started work on the faculty of the Bandung School of Social Work and Faculty of Psychology, Padjadjaran University, and then became a practitioner in the area of human resources, organizational development and strategic management. In 1998 she was selected as the Executive Director of the Indonesia National Human Rights Commission. Since then she has been active in human rights, conflict resolution, peacebuilding, transitional justice and interfaith/pluralism issues in Indonesia. Since 2004, she has been serving as a board member of the Pulih Foundation and the Tifa Foundation, as well as the Coordinator for the Center for Empowering Reconciliation and Peace/CERP. She conducts training in conflict transformation and mediation in post-conflict areas including Aceh, Papua, the North Moluccas and Timor Leste.

Dr. Perera was educated in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and in the United States, where he studied at Harvard University, obtaining Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Doctor of Law degrees. Besides the National Peace Council, an NGO that focuses on facilitating a people's movement for peace and a negotiated political solution to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, he is on the boards of several other civil society organizations, including the People's Action for Free and Fair Elections and Sarvodaya Legal Services, and has been a member of government advisory committees, including the Ministry of Human Rights and presently the Ministry of National Languages and Social Integration. He has written extensively about the Sri Lankan conflict and issues of conflict resolution and peace building. He was awarded the inaugural Sakai Peace Contribution Award by the city of Sakai in Japan in 2008 and the Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti National Award for Peace, Tolerance and Harmony from the Inter Faith Harmony Foundation of India and the Non Violence Award of the Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation in 2007.

Dr. Sayre’s work experience is varied and includes being an agriculture extension worker, a college teacher, a local consultant and an NGO adviser. He implements initiatives related to water system development, biodiversity, agro-forestry, and ecological sanitation, promoting a culture of peace, micro-financing and rural organizing with emphasis on the poor mainly in Mindanao, the Philippines. His initiatives have won much recognition, including an award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Grand Challenges Explorations in Global Health for his work on ecological sanitation. He was an Endeavour Leadership Fellow in Australia in 2007 and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow in Bellagio, Italy, in 2010. He has published manuals on community-based seedling nurseries and tree planting and on promoting a culture of peace in Mindanao, as well as a book on ecological sanitation. He is also a published poet and short-story writer.

With more than twenty-three years of experience in education, Dr. Huong has participated in a variety of educational research regarding educational planning and management, education management information systems and comparative studies on education development between Vietnam and foreign countries. She has served as a leading consultant for a number of World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other prominent internationally funded projects in Vietnam. Furthermore, she has been well exposed to international practice and has developed efficient and fruitful relationships with international donors and national educational management units at different levels. She has written extensively on Vietnamese education and education management and has published several articles in the Vietnamese Educational Review and the Journal of Educational Sciences on education management, educational development issues in Vietnam and comparative studies of Vietnam and the world in education.

Dr. Zhang received her B.A. (English Language and Literature) from Sichuan International Studies University, and M.A. (International Relations) and PhD (Political Science) from the City University of New York. She did her dissertation on welfare reform in China and its impact on the mobilization power of displaced workers during China’s economic transition in the 1990s. Her research interests include social movements, conflict resolution, political economy in post-socialist transition and transitional politics in China, and welfare development. She currently works for data compiling and drafting of the Repertoire of the Practices of the Security Council, mandated by the General Assembly in 1952, a constitutional and procedural guide to the proceedings of the Council since 1946. It presents, as comprehensively as possible, relevant data regarding the practices of the Council and the application of the UN Charter and the Council's provisional rules of procedure.