Alumni

Saw Alex Htoo is the Deputy Director of the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN). He has been heavily involved in local, national and regional campaigns on sustainable use and management of
natural resources, large scale hydropower, mining, plantation agriculture projects, land confiscations and refugee resettlement, and on International Financial Institutions' reengagement in Burma/Myanmar. He
closely monitors Burma/Myanmar's current reforms, especially in regard to the peace-building processes and the increase in natural resource extraction after the signing of ceasefire agreements between central Burma/Myanmar government and leaders of ethnic armed groups. He is also one of the national representatives of civil society organization representing at Myanmar's Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (MEITI).
Saw Alex Htoo is also a journalist who has written articles on the civil war conflicts, natural resource management, transparency and accountability issues and foreign investment in conflict areas. He has worked in conflict areas for more than seven years, and has represented KESAN as a speaker at conferences, as a facilitator, translator and organizer at workshops, and has recently conducted trainings and dialogue sessions with conflict affected communities and ethnic armed group leaders in Eastern Burma/Myanmar.

Sebastian Sahla has five years’ experience working with civil society, government agencies and the private sector on natural resource governance issues. After working for the German development agency GIZ in Liberia to support the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy, he joined the London-based consultancy Critical Resource, where he spent four years advising oil and mining companies on sustainability and political risk issues. Since July 2015, he has been working for NRGI in Myanmar on two areas: the drafting of a report titled ‘Natural Resource Federalism: Considerations for Myanmar’ and coordinating the production of weekly policy briefings to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation.

He has substantial research, Documentary making and consultancy track record in the UK, Afghanistan and Worldwide for more than a decade. Tireless worker, extremely resourceful and well connected with worldwide professional networks. Worked effectively, in both Government and Non-Governmental Organisations in Afghanistan and in the West.

Sidra Khalid is a Program Assistant in the Capacity Development team at Natural Resource Governance. Her role is to provide effective programmatic and administrative support to the Capacity Development team. She support NRGI’s courses and fellowships. Her duties include participant selection, producing course communications materials, developing an alumni engagement strategy, providing financial management support, and engaging in rigorous monitoring and evaluation to improve courses. Sidra previously worked at ISEAL where she managed external communications including webinars, newsletters, social media and blog articles. Sidra holds an MSc in Anthropology of Development from Durham University and a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan.

Sobirin graduated from Gadjah Mada University in 2008 and then immediately involved in the work of the Desantara Foundation, an Indonesian non-government organization based in Jakarta. His career as an activist begun when he was doing action research in natural resources conflict between a cement factory and local community in Pati, Central Java. He lived there for four years to dig in many aspects of scientific, moral and philosophical questions on the case of cement factory development plan in North Kendeng Hills. This experience gave him an insight that the local community welfare is not as simple as building a factory. This helps him to understand the complex networks between the life story of community, capital and politization of scientific research.

Solongo has graduated from the School of Foreign Service, at National University of Mongolia. She started career path with the World Bank as an office assistant, then in the following years has worked on governance programs at The Asia Foundation, and joined The Global Fund's Country Coordinating Mechanism for a short term. She joined NRGI in April 2016 as a program assistant. She is responsible for human resource, finance, and administrative issues.

Somaia has completed a postgraduate Master of Arts course in Economics Governance and Development on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and a BA
Economics course in Pune University, Pune, India. The courses have expanded her perspectives and knowledge of the contemporary economic development issues in the region, particularly in Afghanistan, as well as the role of existing actors in addressing them. During her studies she has successfully maintained a high GPA demonstrating strong academic performances. She achieved outstanding academic records and received multiple awards during my post and undergraduate studies as well.
Also, she has experiences of working with Ministry of Finance in Afghanistan with the perspectives of internationally distinguished organizations such as Monitoring Agent of the World Bank (MA/ARTF) and Deloitte LLP as Debt Management Advisor. She worked for UN Habitat for period of 16 months as Reporting officer too. She believe her studies and practical work experience have helped me to obtain a good understanding of the direct relation between good governance and policy making, socio-economic growth, and conflict prevention. 

Senior Researcher of Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEA). IDEA is embarking on the project to improve the governance of oil and gas sector in Malaysia. As senior researcher at IDEAS, I am honored to
be given responsibility to manage the project. However, as someone who has not been trained particularly in oil and gas industry, I will need to improve my knowledge on the industry to be able to run the project successfully.

Starjoan is the director of AFRIM's program and projects related to natural resource governance, part of her tasks is to implement, monitor and promote the knowledge, good practices and lessons of our EITI sub-national initiatives at the local level, particularly in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). In her capacity as a Board Member of Bantay Kita and as Mindanao CSO Representative to the Multi-stakeholders’ Group (MSG) of the Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (PH-EITI), she is responsible to bring the voices and concerns of civil society organizations and their communities to influence policy discourse at the national level, and for the Philippines to go beyond transparency and push forward accountability and meaningful reforms in natural resource governance. 

Su Hlaing Myint is one of Myanmar’s leading activists on environmental issues. She has ten years’ working experience in grassroot advocacy and community mobilization. In 2008, she co-founded a local NGO Grow Back for Prosperity to protect Myanmar's natural and cultural heritage by using science-based conservation measures and by collaborating with a wide range of stakeholders. Su Hlaing is a national representative of the civil society consortium Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and Accountability and a member of the Myanmar EITI multi-stakeholder group. Her hobbies include bird-watching and activities related to nature conservation.

Sunandar serves as the Head of Sub Directorate for Oil and Gas for more than five years. He is responsible to make planning, monitoring, evaluation, and policy assessment related on national oil and gas sector development. Prior to this assignment, he was a member of working group for the connectivity of Masterplan for Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesia’s Economic Development (MP3EI) connectivity. He holds master of Planning and Public Policy from Universitas Indonesia.

Active in Indonesian Forum for Environment (WALHI) Yogyakarta since 2003. Now he is a regional board of Walhi that responsible to supervise, monitor and evaluate program. He did some researches in mining topic on 2005 (Environmental Impact Assessment of PT Margola Mining, Magelang, Central Java Province, WALHI Yogyakarta -LBH Yogya)and 2010 (Environmental Impact Assessment of Pig Iron Mining, Kulonprogo, Yogyakarta Province, WALHI Yogyakarta; Environmental Impact Assessment of Gold Mining, Pacitan, East Java, WALHI Yogyakarta).

She worked in World Vision for 5 years as a customer services coordinator in sponsorship project. Worked in World Concern for 3 years as a Program Coordinator for Integrated Development Project. Since six years ago worked at Paung Ku for six years as a Senior Program Coordinator for Strengthening Civil society Initiatives program.

Tenti Kurniawati, coordinator department of governance budget for the fulfillment of ecosoc right IDEA Association (January 2013 –present). Responsibilities: Develop, navigate and supervision the program to
improve local planning and budgeting process with a gender perspective, and poverty reduction; Develop,navigate and supervision the program to improve social community participatory monitoring with social audit isntrument, budget tracking istrumen, citizen report card instrument; Develop, navigate and supervision the program to improve transparency and accountability of revenue and spending from mining.

Thein Htun is an Assistant Director with a geology background in the Department of Mines, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation, Myanmar. His work includes inspection of mines site, checking of the application of mining license and issue of license. He is also contributing to increase Myanmar cooperation in the EITI with a goal to include Myanmar as a Compliant Country of EITI.