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Experts on countries of origin by country

Aguilar, Professor M.I.

Expertise on religion and politics in a number of African, Asian and Latin American countries - and in a number of languages. Current research includes China (Tibet), Chile, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Argentina, DRC, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Malawi and Zimbabwe; Libya and Syria

Occupation: Chair in Religion and Politics & Director, Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics (CSRP), University of St. Andrews
Countries of expertise: Brazil, Burundi, China, Colombia, Cote d`Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Syria, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Akbar, Bezwi

My expertise encompasses humanitarian affairs, public policy, migration, education, community resilience, religious and ethnic diversity, civil society development, international cooperation, and stakeholder engagement, with extensive knowledge of the social, political, economic, and cultural dynamics shaping emerging and developing regions. Through research, policy analysis, and community-focused initiatives, I have contrubted to advancing sustainable development, social inclusion, intercultural dialogue, institutional capacity building, and regional cooperation, while leading forthcoming research on governance reform, development partnerships, educational transformation, migration trends, and socioeconomic development.

Occupation: I am international development practitioner with a strong interest in
humanitarian affairs, cross-cultural cooperation, educational
development, youth empowerment, migration issues, and sustainable
community initiatives.
Countries of expertise: Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Mexico, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Korea, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zimbabwe

Annoni, Danielle

Danielle Annoni is an associate professor of International Law and Human Rights at the Federal University of Parana (UFPR-Brazil), where she coordinates the Human Rights Observatory and Legal Practice in Human Rights and Migration. She has been conducting human rights research for 18 years. She is an educator, a mother and an active human rights defender, with a focus on migration, gender and the Latin American human rights protection system. Because of her work developed with vulnerable groups regarding the education of labor rights, the empowering of women through handicraft and gastronomy fairs, advocacy in the mediation of cultural conflicts, and access to justice and education, she has received several awards.

Occupation: International Migration Law Professor and legal consultant
Countries of expertise: Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Italy, Mexico, Mozambique, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Senegal, Spain, Sudan, Timor-Leste, Venezuela

Anzorena, Ana Suarez

PhD in Social Science, sociologist and human rights expert specialising in country conditions analysis related to political violence, forced displacement, and asylum claims in Latin America. 

Occupation: Sociologist and Human Rights Specialist on Latin America
Countries of expertise: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela

Bussmann, Dr Gus

I am a Law and DEI expert with 15+ years of experience and intersectional background. I have presence on: Walpole, GQ Heroes, MBS & British Council of Fashion, Attitude Magazine, quoted by Vogue Business and Boston Consultancy Group. I teach at Instituto Marangoni and have extensive experience in: LGBTQ+ Rights, Human Rights in Latin America, Political Landscape of Brazil and Latin American Countries, Law and Politics. 

Occupation: Expert in Human Rights, LGBTQ+ Rights and Latin American Countries.
DEI consultant
Countries of expertise: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela

Christian, Dr. Patrick James

Dr. Christian is a psychoanalytical anthropologist with a doctorate in violent ethnic & cultural conflict. He has spent the past 36-years researching and practicing in Eurasia, Southwest Asia, Middle East, Central and South America, West Africa, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. His field work was in support of military, diplomatic, and humanitarian interventions in violent intra-state conflicts. He is a member of the American Anthropological Association’s Society for Psychological Anthropology and the American Psychological Association’s Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, Race, Conflict, & Violence.

Dr. Christian’s expertise is derived through a combination of academic training and extensive field work and is best described as the ‘application of psychoanalytical sociological analysis using anthropological methodology to curate the science to a specific subject community’s emic or lived/living experiences both mentally and emotionally.’ This level of analytical research allows him to illuminate the underlying psychosocial-emotional motivations of individual and collective behaviour post-mortem to, and predictive of, violent conflict.

Clinical research, analysis, & training into the psychopathology of… Read more
Occupation: Field Research Social Scientist
Countries of expertise: Afghanistan, Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Chad, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Iran, Latvia, Lithuania, Mali, Moldova, Niger, Peru, Russia, Serbia, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen

Gariglio, Damian Alejandro

The expert is a seasoned International Analyst and Political Scientist, specializing in humanitarian disarmament, arms control, and criminal structures operating in the Latin America and Caribbean region, with extensive experience in NGOs in Argentina and Colombia. His research and academic endeavors are dedicated to addressing pressing issues in defense, security, and humanitarian efforts in the region.

Occupation: The expert is an International Analyst and Political Scientist, with proven experience working for NGOs in Argentina and Colombia in the humanitarian disarmament and the Defense and Security sector. The expert possess experience in the research and academic field as well focused on humanitarian disarmament, gang-related violence, armed conflicto, arms control, gender based violence, criminal structures, and transnational organized crime issues.
Countries of expertise: Argentina, Brazil, Caribbean, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela

Gashi, Fiarda

I analyze emerging and developing markets focusing on how economic structures and institutions shape real outcomes. My work delivers practical insights on risk, growth, and structural constraints based on how these politics and economies actually function on the ground.

Occupation: My work centers on understanding how macroeconomic structures, political institutions, and external dependencies shape real economic outcomes in countries that are often misunderstood or oversimplified.

My work focuses on larger systems like Argentina and Brazil, where the challenge is less about basic capacity and more about volatility and policy consistency. These are complex economies with strong agricultural and industrial bases, but they struggle with inflation cycles, fiscal imbalances, and productivity constraints. I use frameworks commonly associated with the International Monetary. I also spend time on smaller Caribbean economies such as Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. These are very different systems Trinidad and Tobago is energy-driven, while Jamaica depends… Read more
Countries of expertise: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cote d`Ivoire, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, Jamaica, Liberia, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela

Gutierrez Rivera, Lirio

Lirio Gutiérrez Rivera is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (National University of Colombia)​. She studied political science (Freie Universität Berlin) and anthropology (Universidad de los Andes- Colombia). ​​Her research includes urban violence, contemporary prisons, youth and street gangs, gender and urban planning, community leaders, and state responses to crime and violence in Latin America, particularly Honduras and Colombia.​ Her research has been funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Latin American Council for Social Research. Her book, Territories of Violence. State, Marginal Youth, and Public Security, was published in 2013 with Palgrave. She is currently working on her second book on women community leaders and high risk urban contexts in Colombia.

Occupation: Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, National University of Colombia (Univerisdad Nacional de Colombia)

Countries of expertise: Colombia, Honduras

Harding, Robert

Dr. Harding earned a Ph.D. in International Studies from the University of Miami with specializations in Latin American Politics, Foreign Policy Analysis, and International Relations. His major professor and dissertation chair was the late Dr. Enrique Baloyra, a renowned Cuba-born scholar. Dr. Harding has held full-time academic appointments in Virginia, Alabama, and most recently Georgia, where he is the Professor of Political Science at Valdosta State University. He is the author of three books and several book chapters as well as over a dozen journal articles. Dr. Harding has been an invited presenter on Latin American politics in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. He has been a federally recognized asylum expert since 2018, working for asylum attorneys throughout the United States as well as the UK and and the Netherlands.

Occupation: Professor of Political Science
Countries of expertise: Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela

Oner, Imdat

Dr. Imdat Oner is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Jack D. Gordon Institute and a former diplomat with over two years of service in Venezuela. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Florida International University, specializing in Latin American politics.

Dr. Oner is an expert in Venezuelan political affairs, with a focus on government repression, opposition persecution, and human rights violations. His work provides critical insights into state-controlled security forces, judicial persecution, and extrajudicial threats against dissidents. Leveraging his diplomatic experience and extensive research, he offers expert reports for asylum cases, analyzing the risks faced by opposition members through firsthand knowledge, international human rights documentation, and regional political analysis.

Occupation: Senior Policy Analyst
Countries of expertise: Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Turkey, Venezuela

Pacifico, Andrea Pacheco

Dr. Pacifico has been an international lawyer since 1993, with expertise in International Human Rights Law, particularly human rights of refugees and forced migrants, since 1997. She has been an associate professor for Law and International Relations at Maceio, Brasilia, and Joao Pessoa universities since 1997.  She has taught International Law/Relations, Human Rights, and Refugee and Migration Issues for more than two decades. Dr. Pacifico has also presented seminars, given lectures and interviews, published papers, supervised theses and dissertations on these issues, and my own research principally focuses on human rights of legal minorities and human rights protections of refugees and legal minorities in Brazil and abroad.

Currently, Dr. Pacifico is a full-time associate professor in International Relations at Paraiba State University and a full-time collaborator/researcher at the Post-Graduate Program in Comparative Studies on the Americas, at University of Brasilia, both in Brazil, in addition to being a Senior Research Associate at the Refugee Law Initiative at University of London, UK. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the York University Centre for Refugee Studies, Canada (2009 to 2010), visiting research fellow at the Refugee Studies… Read more

Occupation: Professor
Countries of expertise: Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Italy, Mexico, Mozambique, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Senegal, Spain, Sudan, Timor-Leste, Venezuela

Sedreni, Gyltene

My work has equipped me to evaluate country conditions through a disciplined framework that considers security, governance, community dynamics, institutional behavior, and vulnerability in combination, rather than in isolation. My expertise is especially relevant where a case turns on whether an individual could reasonably obtain protection, safely relocate, or avoid persecution, serious harm, reprisals, extortion, gang coercion, political targeting, gender-based violence, or reprisals linked to family or community structures. I assess, where relevant, whether state protection is available, effective, and accessible in practice; whether criminal or political actors can act with impunity or informal protection; whether relocation within the country would be realistic and durable; how local factors affect the risk profile of the individual concerned; and whether socio-economic, ethnic, political, or family-based vulnerabilities materially increase exposure to harm.

Occupation: I am an experienced country conditions, security, governance, and conflict-affected environments specialist with substantial professional experience in international peace-support operations, civil-military coordination, risk assessment, security analysis, and field-based evaluation of fragile institutional settings. My work in connection with KFOR gave me direct exposure to the practical assessment of security conditions, ethnic and political tensions, freedom of movement issues, state and quasi-state institutional capacity, policing effectiveness, local power structures, humanitarian conditions, civilian vulnerability, and the interaction between formal and informal systems of control. KFOR’s role has long involved maintaining a secure environment, preserving freedom of movement,… Read more
Countries of expertise: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela

Suárez, Dr Tatiana

Lecturer, researcher and country expert witness, with over 15 years of research and fieldwork experience examining armed conflicts, political violence, peace processes and post-conflict transitions, mainly in Colombia, and recently the Colombo-Venezuelan transnational conflicts. My expertise is grounded in extensive ethnographic research in conflict-affected regions, where I have conducted first-hand investigations into armed group activity, forced recruitment, internal displacement, and political and illicit economy-related violence.

Occupation: Lecturer, researcher and country expert witness, with over 15 years of research and fieldwork experience examining armed conflicts, political violence, peace processes and post-conflict transitions, mainly in Colombia, but recently the Colombo-Venezuelan transnational conflicts. My expertise is grounded in extensive ethnographic research in conflict-affected regions, particularly Cauca, where I have conducted first-hand investigations into armed group activity, forced recruitment, internal displacement, drug-related violence, and the protection landscape for vulnerable populations including ex-combatants, human right defenders, environmental activists, and those fleeing persecution. I provide country expertise on Colombia for asylum and protection claims. I also work in higher education… Read more
Countries of expertise: Colombia, Venezuela

Sultana, Sayada Zakia

Her academic and professional qualifications include an undergraduate in Psychology (Academic year: 1997) and a postgraduate degree and training (Academic year: 1997-98 and 1999-2000) in Clinical Psychology; clinical work is diverse and covers assessment and therapy for adults and minority ethnic groups for various conditions. As a multilingual psychologist with multi-cultural experience, she can assess efficiently and provide culturally emotional sensitive service

 

Her employment history involves working as a psychologist:

She used to work with Nafas Drug Treatment Centre, Age Concern, Special People, Social Action for Health, The UK Centre for Counselling & Psychotherapy, London School of Psychology and Health, Flow Neuroscience and Centre for Psychological Health (She has prepared numerous well-referenced expert reports for UK institutions including the Family Court, Immigration Court, Home Office, Department for Work and Pensions, and Land Registry. Her work integrates factual findings with comprehensive assessments and evidence-based analysis. She has prepared over 150 expert psychological and country reports, guided by a strong commitment to ethical and professional standards.

Professional Memberships and Affiliations:

She is… Read more

Occupation: Professional Psychologist; Counsellor & Psychotherapist; Psychometrician, Researcher, Supervisor, and Trainer
Countries of expertise: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Colombia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Philippines, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Venezuela

Tognato, Carlo

An accomplished Senior Analyst with 20 years of extensive experience spanning Latin America, Australia, the United States, and Europe, supported by interdisciplinary training in economics, political science, sociology, and international affairs. Currently Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University after two years as Research Fellow at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota and two years as Senior Policy Fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Before returning to the US in 2019, I have been for a decade Associate Professor of Sociology at the National University of Colombia in Bogota and have directed for four years the Center for Social Studies at the same university. I have spearheaded technical cooperation initiatives focused on democracy-building and my work has involved community mobilization and outreach in Colombia, particularly on counter-radicalization and narrative transformation. I have engaged in collaboration with civil society, media, business sectors, policymakers, and academic institutions and have linked local efforts with regional and global initiatives, facilitating alliances at national, regional, and international levels. My role has also included… Read more

Occupation: Researcher
Countries of expertise: Colombia, Italy

Tushar, Md Solaiman

The Expert is a Barrister-at-Law of England and Wales. The Expert is a practicing Advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. He holds the position of Head of Chambers at "LexAria and Jurists" (link : https://lexariaandjurists.com/) , and President at "Justice for All', with nearly a decade's experience in legal practice. The expert regularly moves before the Supreme Court of Bangladesh for various matters including Writ (Judicial Review), Criminal and Civil Appeal and Revision, Bail Petition, Intellectual Property, Company Matter, Inheritance, Public Interest Litigation, Muslim Personal Law, Succession Law, Hindu Law, etc.

As a practicing Advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, the expert is legally qualified to verify any legal documents including case, GD, judgments and other relevant documents, and check records from the government office of Bangladesh including Courts and Tribunals unless restricted by the law or relevant office. 

Parallel to his legal pursuits, the expert is the Legal Affairs and Political Editor of The Daily Campus and columnist. Accumulatively, he possesses over 18 years of sustained experience as a Journalist in Bangladesh, having written extensively on a broad range of issues, including human rights, the criminal justice… Read more

Occupation: Barrister-at-Law, Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh, Researcher, Journalist, and Columnist.
Countries of expertise: Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Mexico, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Korea, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zimbabwe