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Executive BoardDr Hilda M. Tadria
She was an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Makerere University, and was a Senior Consultant, Women in Development at the Eastern and Southern Management Institute based in Tanzania. She also served as the country resident representative in Zimbabwe for the Institute. In the early 90s she was a Programme Officer with the African Capacity Building Foundation. She was a private consultant for five years till her appointment as the Special Advisor on Gender to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa based in Addis, Ethiopia. While she was lecturing at Makerere University she founded the women's NGO known as Action for Development (ACFODE). She has extensive field research experience in participatory and qualitative research methodologies both at rural community level and corporate organisational level. She has published a number of papers on Gender and Development. Dr Abena P.A. Busia
She is currently working on two book manuscripts, Songs in a Strange Land; Narrative and Rituals of Remembrance in the Novels of Black Women of Africa and the African Diaspora, for Indiana University Press, and At Territorial Borders; Essays on Gender, Race, Exile and Community. Her first Volume of poems, Testimonies of Exile, was published by Africa World Press, Trenton NJ, in March 1990. Ms Joana Foster
In her spare time, she has been was involved in activism around poverty, race equality and women's rights. She gave legal advice voluntarily to the Pre-school Playgroup Association of England and Wales for three years as their honorary legal adviser. She provided the same pro bono service to various women's centres and black organisations in the UK. She was also a Trustee of the Child Poverty Action Group of the UK. In the 1990s she entered the NGO sector full time, first as the Country Director of CUSO, Ghana, a Canadian Non-Profit organisation committed to social justice around the world. She was once the Regional Coordinator of Women in law and Development in Africa, the leading women's rights network in Africa, a post she held for four years. WILDAF is a pan-African network of organisations and individuals dedicated to promoting and strengthening strategies that link law and development to increase the capacity of women to enjoy all their human rights. She is one of the founders of the Gender and Human Rights Documentation Centre based in Accra, Ghana. Ms Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi
Ms Thandi MbvundulaThandi is an IT entrepreneur from Malawi. She trained as an engineer, and has many years of experience in the corporate and non-proifts sectors. Her areas of expertise include financial software development and training, management consulting and business skills developmetn for small-medium scale enterprises. she is currently an IT advisor to the NEPAD secretariat in South Africa. Ms Tumi MakgaboTumi Makgabo currently works as Communications Manager for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee South Africa, based in Johannesburg. She is also hosts and produces a talk show, 'Talk with Tumi Makgabo', for M-Net in South Africa. Previously Tumi was, for several years, an anchor for CNN International, based Atlanta. She has also hosted and co-produced the network's award winning program, Inside Africa. Now based in South Africa, her continuing work with CNN keeps her in the forefront of viewer awareness, while allowing her to focus even more on the stories that will help change perceptions of the continent and it's people. Tumi has had the privilege of discussing the state of Africa with some of its leaders. She has interviewed many prominent world leaders such as South African President, Thabo Mbeki; former South African President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nelson Mandela; British Prime Minister, Tony Blair; Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo; U.S. President, George W. Bush; former U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell; United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan; Mozambican President, Joachim Chissano; Tibetan Spiritual Leader, the Dalai Lama; former NATO Secretary-General, George Robertson; former President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn as well as world renowned stars such as Oprah Winfrey, Miriam Makeba, Pakistani former international cricketer, Imran Khan; and acclaimed violinist Maxim Vengerov among others. She currently producing and hosting a new television programme to be broadcast in South Africa. An upbringing under the apartheid regime, gave Tumi first hand experience of the impact the lack of information can have, not only disenfranchising the populous but allowing for the perpetuation of practices that are detrimental to Africa and its people. Although having a global platform allowed Tumi to reach many, it was even more important for her to work towards changing the status quo on the continent. One of the most fundamental ways in which to do so is through communication, information and dialogue. In recognition of her work in broadcasting, Tumi has received a number of awards including the prestigious Eagle Award, a Rapport City Press Prestige Award as well as the African People's Intercontinental Broadcaster of the Year Award. As a speaker, Tumi has been able to share her experiences and the knowledge she has gained over the past decade in broadcasting. Ms Elizabeth LwangaElizabeth Lwanga has Over thirty years experience in development work with a focus on programme development including policy formulation, project/programme design, implementation and evaluation. Experience includes five years working with national governments, fifteen years with non-governmental organizations and fifteen years with the United Nations. Special areas of interest and expertise include policy dialogue with government, management of development in crisis or special circumstances, partnership building with civil society and donor community, personnel management, inter-agency coordination, programme analysis, development support communication, information and communication, radio and television production, gender analysis, and the advancement of women in development. Currently, UNDP Deputy Regional Director, Africa Bureau. Formerly, UNDP Resident Representative and Coordinator of United Nations System in Swaziland for over four years. Served for almost five years as Resident Representative, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sierra Leone, Manager of the UNDP Gender in Development Programme in New York from 1992 to 1994, after a 14 month posting as Deputy Representative in the Gambia.
Prior to joining UNDP, served as Africa Director for OXFAM America between 1989 and 1990. For three years between 1985/88 worked as a consultant to UNIFEM, UNESCO, ILO, OAU, the World Bank, the World Council of Churches, and the African Women Task Force on the International Decade for Women. Previous positions include work as Director for Communications for the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) and Director of the AACC Training Centre, television producer/director and script writer.
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Dr Hilda Tadria is presently the Board Chair of the AWDF. She is a Ugandan, and a co-founder of the AWDF. She has a degree in Sociology from Makerere University, an MA in Social Anthropology from Newham College, Cambridge, UK and a Doctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of Minnesota, USA. She has been a consultant on Gender and Development, institutional management development and social development research at the World Bank, UNDP, UNIFEM, the Ugandan government and other international agencies such as the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and NOVIB. 
Abena Busia is Associate Professor in the English Department of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where she has taught since 1981. Born in Accra, Ghana, she spent the years of her childhood at home, as well as in Holland and Mexico, before her family finally settled in Oxford, England, where she read for a B.A. in English Language and Literature at St. Anne's College, Oxford, in 1976, and a D.Phil in Social Anthropology (Race Relations) at St. Anthony's College in 1984. She has been an external tutor at Ruskin College, the Labour Relations College affiliated to the University of Oxford, and a visiting lecturer in the Program of African and Afro-American Studies at Yale University. She has also won a number of post-doctoral fellowships including an Andrew Mellon Fellowship in the English department of Bryn Mawr College, and an Institute for American Cultures Fellowship at the Center for Afro-American Studies at UCLA. In addition to being a teacher, she is a poet and short story writer. It is the central experience of exile, across three continents which inform both her writing and her teaching. 
Joana, a co-founder of the AWDF, has been a social activist for over thirty years. She became a member of the Campaign Against Nuclear Disarmament at 17. All through her life she has been involved in founding organisations or supporting initiatives for social justice. She is a qualified lawyer in the UK and in Ghana, the country of her birth. She has practiced in both countries for many years, concentrating on Civil and Political Rights in Ghana, and Immigration and Women's Rights in the UK.
Bisi is Nigerian/British and is the Executive Director of the African Women’s Development Fund, an Africa-wide grantmaking organisation supporting the women’s movement in Africa. She was previously the Director of Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), an international development organisation for African women based in the UK, with an Africa regional office in Kampala, Uganda. She has an M.A in History, and an M.A. in Gender Studies, and experience as a journalist, writer, lecturer, trainer, and as an organisational development specialist. She has expertise in fundraising and organisational development, and training expertise in feminist leadership development and resource mobilisation. During her time at AMwA, she conceptualised the African Women’s Leadership Institute which has helped train over 3,000 women leaders in Africa.