Tom Porteous

Tom Porteous "has worked and travelled extensively in Africa as a journalist, UN peacekeeping official and for the Foriegn Office. In the 1980s and early 1990s he was a freelance correspondent for the Guardian, the BBC and others, first in Cairo and later in Berlin and Morocco. In 1994 and 1995 he worked in UN peace operations in Somalia and Liberia. From 1995 to 2000 he was a programme producer, presenter and editor at the BBC World Service radio working on Africa and the Middle East. From 2001 to 2003 he was the conflict management adviser at the Africa directorate of the British Foreign Office. He is currently the London Director of Human Rights Watch."

• Advisor, Oxford Research Group

He is the author of Britain in Africa (Zed Books, 2008).