Migration and Displacement in the IGAD Region: Human Mobility in the Context of COVID-1

About

Michael Owiso is the dean in the School of Development and Strategic Studies and Director Odera Akango Campus at Maseno University-Kenya. He also holds a senior visiting research fellow position at Kings College London. He has taught subjects in the fields of political science international relations and development studies at various universities in Kenya and abroad. He was previously in the humanitarian sector for over 17 years during which he made contributions to the peacebuilding field. During this time he also worked closely with displacement-affected communities in various settings including camps and urban centers in Kenya Uganda and Tanzania. He has conceptual and practical experience in dealing with conflict peace security and development issues in the Eastern and Horn of Africa region. He is a champion of participatory methods to development and education. He is also a consultant in the above fields. Fekadu Adugna Tufa is an associate professor of Social Anthropology at Addis Ababa University Ethiopia where he served as a chairman for over three years. He has been conducting research on a variety of issues including inter-ethnic conflicts identity studies border studies land use system forced displacement and migration. He has coordinated and served as principal researcher in several multi-country research projects on forced displacement refugees migration and borderland studies in the Horn of Africa. He is a co-I for a Protracted Displacement Economy funded by Global Challenge Research Fund which is part of UKs ODA funding. He was also a coordinator and a researcher in Migrating out of Poverty a project funded by DFID and Borderland Dynamics in East Africa funded by NORAD. Fekadu is widely publishing on conflicts migration and forced displacements.   Abdi Hersi is the Senior Regional Policy and Liaison officer for the International Organization for Migration (UN Migration Agency) of the East and Horn of Africa region. Abdi has over 15 years of migration management experience as practice policy development and research. Prior to this assignment he was the Knowledge Management and Learning expertMigration Program of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). Dr. Abdi is a former sessional lecturer in the School of Humanities Languages and Social Sciences of Griffith University and has previously taught the course of Conflict and Forced Displacement. He is the author of the migrant integration book: Conceptualisation of Integration: An Australian Muslim Counter-Narrative published by Palgrave Macmillan.