The APP Secretariat was established in Geneva in 2008 to support Panel members in their outreach and public advocacy work. It also publishes a fortnightly news Bulletin; and action-oriented Policy Briefs and Information notes on topical and timely issues.

Caroline Kende-Robb is the Executive Director of the Africa Progress Panel. Prior to joining the Africa Progress Panel, Ms. Kende-Robb worked at the World Bank for nine years as a senior manager and technical expert for the Sustainable Development Network in the regions of Africa, Europe and Central Asia, and East Asia. In that role, she led teams of technical experts to implement World Bank loans and grants for community driven projects, and to conduct policy research into complex global issues, including governance, conflict and fragility, climate change, social justice, and financial crises.

Ms Kende-Robb began her career in management for five years in the private sector before joining the development community as a Business and Community Development Advisor in a small rural fishing community in The Gambia with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO). She then served as West Africa Field Director for the NGO Africa Now, and worked for the UNDP country team in The Gambia as the Poverty Alleviation Focal Point. Before joining the World Bank, Ms Kende-Robb was the first Poverty and Social Development Advisor recruited by the International Monetary Fund to manage the introduction of a poverty and social perspective into the Fund’s macroeconomic programs and policy dialogue.

Ms Kende-Robb is an Advisor for CAMFED, an NGO focused on the education of girls in Africa. She is also the author of many publications including, “Can the Poor Influence Policy? Participatory Poverty Assessments in the Developing World,” a book co-published by the World Bank and the IMF.

Peter da Costa is a development policy and strategic communication specialist who has worked extensively in Africa as well as on global issues and initiatives for more than two decades. A trained journalist, he reported from West Africa during the early 1990s for a range of print, broadcast and multimedia outlets. In 1994 he became Regional Director for Africa of Inter Press Service, a global media and development communication agency, and moved to Zimbabwe. In 1997 he was appointed Senior Communication Adviser to the UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, headquartered in Ethiopia. In 2003 he left the UN to pursue doctoral studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and was subsequently awarded a Ph.D. in Development Studies. His areas of expertise include Translating Research into Policy; Strategic Communication; Monitoring and Evaluation; and Organizational Development. He consults extensively with multilateral and bilateral development agencies, philanthropic foundations and civil society organizations. He originates from The Gambia and Ghana, and is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Afia Darteh holds a master degree in International Affairs from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva where she specialized in human rights and development.  A Ghanaian national, Afia also has experience with a range of international organisations including the International Catholic Migration Commission and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Afia began her career in Ghana, where she is a co-founder of the Ghana Youth Watch, a Ghanaian NGO which advocates for equal education opportunity. She also worked with a communications company and with an NGO called the Peace Education and Community Empowerment in Ghana (PEACE Ghana).

A former journalist, Ed spent five years with Reuters in East Africa, producing multimedia stories while based in Djibouti, Eritrea, and then the Indian Ocean region. His stories covered a variety of issues from politics and culture through to economics and the environment. While there, he was the first western journalist for several years to report from the tense Ethiopian-Eritrean border and from rebel-controlled areas in eastern Sudan. He also filed stories for the BBC and the Economist. Since moving back to Europe, Ed has spent two years in the communications team at the GAVI Alliance.

Ed has also managed DFID's health portfolio in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, and advised USAID -- following the 9/11 attacks -- on how their Central Asian health programme could support the region's political and social stability.

Ed first travelled to Africa, when he cycled from Kampala down to Cape Town, part of a 10,000 mile journey that began in England. He was educated at Oxford University and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). 

Fawzia Rasheed started out as a medical research scientist (PhD immunology/medicine) before moving into program and policy development.  She was based in Africa and Asia before relocating to Geneva on a Global Health Leadership Fellowship award. As Policy Advisor to 16 developing country Ministries of Health; and Senior Policy Advisor to UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; she has developed strategies, national plans, projects and programs, conceptualized models for governance, and raised the requisite funds. Her assignments include brokering partnerships between governments, NGOs, academic and for-profit sectors. Fawzia consults widely as a program and policy analyst. She increasingly works with governance challenges and profitable models for development.