Timor Sharan is the co-founder and Director of HAMRAH Network, a civil society network he established in 2023 to support Afghan organisations in exile that are resisting repression and working to protect some of the most marginalised communities in Afghanistan. Timor brings over 15 years of experience across the full arc of international development — managing large-scale programmes for USAID, The Asia Foundation, and IDLO; serving as Deputy Director-General for Policy and Programmes in the Afghan government; and working as Senior Analyst for Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group. In 2020, he founded the Afghanistan Policy Lab, Afghanistan’s first policy hub dedicated to evidence-based governance reform. He is also the author of Inside Afghanistan: Political Networks, Informal Order and State Disruption, an authoritative account of how the Afghan state was captured from within and why it collapsed.

He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Exeter and an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Bahishta Zahir Hellali has worked for over a decade in international development, human rights, and the rule of law. In Afghanistan, she was a Research Fellow with the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law, contributing to legal reform and justice sector initiatives and worked as a consultant to the United Nations on environmental issues. She holds an LL.M. in International and European Law from Aix-Marseille University in France and is pursuing a Ph.D. at Goethe University, in Frankfurt, Germany.

Sawsan Abou Zainedin is the Chief Executive Officer of Madaniya, a Syrian-led, Syrian-funded initiative focused on enhancing the political agency of Syria’s civic space. Previously, Sawsan consulted for leading international organisations including the UN Economic and Social Commission (UNESCWA), the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), the European Institute of Peace, Arab Reform Initiative, and PAX. Sawsan has published and lectured extensively on topics relating to the Syrian conflict. She is also a member of GIZ’s Experts Network on Housing, Land, and Property Rights in Syria and the Institute for Integrated Transitions’ (IFIT) Syria Resource Group. 

Dianna Melrose is a former British High Commissioner to Tanzania and Ambassador to Cuba, with wide experience in international development. As Oxfam GB’s first Policy Director, she was instrumental in building Oxfam’s international advocacy work. In 1993 she visited Afghanistan to interview Afghan women displaced by conflict, for an Oxfam fundraising campaign. At the UK’s Department for International Development, she led the International Trade team and developed the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, fostering greater transparency in natural resource management. Dianna was head of the UK’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s Policy Planning department. She served as a trustee of the global affairs think tank ODI (2016-23) and Save the Children UK (2017-25).

Aunohita Mojumdar is a writer, journalist, and editor. She has been a correspondent for prominent Indian media outlets such as the Times of India and the Statesman. She lived and worked in Kabul from late 2003 to early 2012 reporting on different aspects of the transition through a critical lens, contributing to a wide variety of regional and international media. She is the former editor of Himal Southasian. Currently based in Bengaluru, Karnataka, Aunohita has extensive experience of reporting on human rights and other critical issues. She has worked in many countries, including Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, with daily news organisations, magazines, and as a book editor. 

Sussan Tahmasebi is the Executive Director and co-founder of Femena, an organisation that promotes women’s rights and supports women human rights defenders, their organisations and feminist movements in the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) region. From 1999-2011, Sussan was based in Iran, promoting women’s rights and building the capacity of civil society. She regularly speaks in leading news outlets about developments in Iran and the region and has authored or co-authored numerous articles on women’s rights and women’s movements. She is a member of the Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, a non-resident fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), and a board member of the Doria Feminist Fund.

Sandra ‘Sandy’ Feinzig is a lawyer with over thirty years of domestic legal experience and more than eighteen years of experience in international law and development. Her international work spans Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, India, Jordan, Tunisia, Lebanon, China (PRC), and Sudan.

Sandy has worked with national legal aid organizations and UNICEF in Cambodia, and with UNDP on rule of law initiatives in transitional regions of Sudan. She has completed over ten assignments in Afghanistan, including serving as a legal advisor on criminal justice reform projects (JSSP), as a consultant with UNIFEM (2009), and as a gender justice advisor—later becoming Chief of Party—on Dutch and French-funded projects with the International Development Law Organization (IDLO). Prior to rejoining The Asia Foundation in May 2019 as a Senior Advisor, Sandy served for approximately one year as the Foundation’s Deputy Country Representative.

Sandy earned her Juris Doctor from Florida State University College of Law in 1983, followed by a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Public International Law from Cambridge University in 1986. She also holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Florida State University.

Dr Suraya Dalil brings a unique blend of health policy and diplomacy to her work, grounded in a lifelong commitment to human rights, social justice, and accountability. 

Over more than 30 years, her career has spanned frontline primary care, health system leadership, public policy, parliamentary engagement, and multilateral diplomacy. 

Dr Dalil holds a medical degree from Kabul Medical University (1991) and a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (2005). As Afghanistan’s Minister of Public Health from 2010 to 2014, she led political and operational reforms that significantly expanded access to health services and improved the quality of care nationwide. From 2015 to 2019, she served as Afghanistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva and Ambassador to Switzerland, where she was lead author of Afghanistan’s voluntary pledges for UN Human Rights Council membership and headed the country’s delegation to the 2019 Universal Periodic Review.

From 2020 to 2025, she served as Director of the WHO Special Programme for Primary Health Care at WHO Headquarters, where she helped position primary health care as a core programmatic priority, led the documentation of country implementation experiences, oversaw the design of a primary health care leadership course for senior government executives, and supported the establishment of the Global Coalition on Primary Health Care secretariat. Her earlier work with UNICEF in Afghanistan and Somalia shaped her enduring commitment to equity, service, and measurable impact.

Dr Dalil is a proud mother of three daughters, whose curiosity and strength continue to inspire her resolve and resilience.

Fereshta Abbasi is the Afghanistan Researcher in the Asia division at Human Rights Watch, focusing on research and documentation of ongoing abuses in Afghanistan. For several years, she has documented human rights abuses in Afghanistan with different organizations. She was previously a legal advisor for the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), where she trained and developed employees’ legal skills within the Afghan justice sector. She holds an LLM in International law and Strategic Studies from University of Aberdeen and was a Chevening Scholar in 2019-2020.

Jyotishree Nath is a partnership and philanthropy specialist with over 18 years of experience across UK and international social purpose organisations, including roles at the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and the British Red Cross.

Jyoti has worked across strategy, partnership development, and philanthropy, helping organisations design and build long-term partnerships that increase income, strengthen collaboration, and deliver meaningful impact for the people and communities they serve. Her sector experience includes international development, global health, disability inclusion, and sport for development. Her work focuses on strengthening cross-sector collaboration across philanthropy, civil society organisations, academia, and business, with an interest in ecosystem approaches to social impact.

Jyoti grew up in Assam, India, and studied Politics at Hindu College, University of Delhi, before moving to London, where she completed an MSc in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. She is currently developing her first book project exploring culinary anthropology, migration, and identity.