Members of the Group

Meet the Commonwealth Group on Culture and Development

Professor Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey, the Chair of the Group, has been an independent life peer in the United Kingdom's House of Lords since 2004. With expertise in the areas of performing and visual arts, museums and archives, cinema, fashion, and the creative industries, Lola has served in numerous roles, including as Head of Culture at the Greater London Authority and as advisor to the Arts Council.

John Akomfrah
Biographical details to follow

Tahmima Anam was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and grew up in Paris, New York City, and Bangkok. She trained as an anthropologist and earned a PhD from Harvard University in 2005. Her debut novel, A Golden Age, won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book and is being translated into twenty-two languages. Tahmima is a contributing editor at The New Statesman, and her writing has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, and the Guardian.

Gregory Ch'oc, a citizen of Belize, was appointed in 2003 as Executive Director of the Sarstoon Temash Institute of Indigenous Management (SATIIM), an organisation which represents the interests of indigenous Maya people in the management of the Sarstoon Temash national park in Belize. Involved since 1994 in the political struggle of the Maya people, Gregory led and won an unprecedented Supreme Court lawsuit in 2006 against the Government of Belize and a multinational oil company. In 2007 Gregory led a successful constitutional claim in the Supreme Court by the Maya Leaders' Alliance and two Maya communities for rights to land they had traditionally used and occupied.

Anna Feuchtwang, a citizen of the United Kingdom, has almost twenty years of experience as a communications professional in international development, including heading up the communications department at Oxfam and chairing the board of ActionAid UK. Anna is Chief Executive of EveryChild and currently Chair of BOND (British Overseas NGOs for Development).

Sitharamam Kakarala, an Indian citizen, taught Political Theory and Human Rights Law at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore for over a decade before joining the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS) in 2003, where he is currently a Senior Fellow and Director and coordinates the research programme on Law, Society and Culture. His research interests are at the intersection of culture, constitutionalism and questions of human rights.

Keith Khan is a UK citizen with a Trinidadian background. An award-winning artist, Keith's past commissions include Director of Design for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games, and the Celebration Commonwealth Parade for the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002. Current projects to be delivered by his new organisation D Lime include a collaboration with Lille3000 for a spectacle event to mark a French state visit to India in November 2009. Until 2007 Keith was Chief Executive of Rich Mix, a multi-million pound new build arts venue in East London, and his work as Head of Culture for the London 2012 Olympic Games has shaped the initial impetus of the programme with a strong emphasis on young people and diversity.

Letila Mitchell, a citizen of the Fiji Islands, is the founder and Secretary General of the Pacific Arts Alliance and has many years of experience in the arts as a performer, poet, visual artist, artistic director and events manager. A graduate in Cultural Management from City University in London, and having worked with Pacific artists in London for four years, Letila uses her extensive international and regional experience and networks to fight for better opportunities for Pacific artists. Letila was Artistic Director for the Fiji Delegation in the past two Festivals of Pacific Arts and spearheaded the first Pacific Artists Forum during the most recent festival in American Samoa. She is currently the Director of the Fiji Arts Council, and the Artistic Director for Rako, a multimedia arts collective of Rotuman and Polynesian artists.

Sandy Nairne, a citizen of the United Kingdom, is Director of the National Portrait Gallery in London. Well known for his work as a curator and writer, he has held prominent positions at the Tate Gallery, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the Arts Council. Most recently, Sandy worked for eight years as Director: Programmes at Tate alongside Nicholas Serota, and in 2005-2006 chaired the National Museum Directors' Conference Working Group on Cultural Diversity. He is currently a member of the Fabric Advisory Committee of St. Paul's Cathedral and the Councils of the Royal College of Art and the British School at Rome. Sandy also sits on the London Mayor's Cultural Strategy Group.

Éric Théroux is Director General of Multilateral Affairs and International Commitments at the Ministry of International Relations of the Government of Québec. Québec's representative on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, he had also been Legal Director of his ministry. Called to the Bar of Québec in 1987, he has a Master's degree in Law (European community law) from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Professor David Throsby, an Australian citizen, is Professor of Economics at Macquarie University in Sydney. With significant expertise in the creative economy, he has held numerous positions on boards and committees, as well as previously working as a consultant and expert for the World Bank, the OECD and UNESCO. Professor Throsby is also currently Chair of the New South Wales Arts Advisory Council. Professor Throsby's new book on The Economics of Cultural Policy will be published by Cambridge University Press later this year.

Mike van Graan is the Executive Director of the African Arts Institute based in Cape Town, and serves as the head of the Secretariat of the Arterial Network, a continent-wide network of individuals, NGOs, companies and funding partners engaged in the African creative sector. He has held various leadership positions in the South African cultural arena including Special Adviser to the Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology after the first democratic elections in 1994 and General Secretary of the Performing Arts Network of South Africa (PANSA). He is the Programme Director for the Fourth World Summit on Arts and Culture to be held in Johannesburg in September 2009 and is an award-winning playwright.

Ayeta Anne Wangusa, a Ugandan writer and journalist, currently works in Tanzania with SNV, the Netherlands Development Organisation, as a Governance Advisor (Civil Society Strengthening / Media). With significant experience in gender issues and literature, Ayeta is a founder member of FEMRITE and the Uganda Women Writers' Association. A former regional judge of the 2003 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Ayeta was appointed in early 2009 as East African representative on the Commonwealth Foundation's Civil Society Advisory Committee.

Related Documents

	Download the Culture and Development statement 445 KB)