Vincent Alexander is currently Deputy Registrar of the University of Guyana, one of the Co-chairs of the Joint Task Force on Local Government Reform, Member of Parliament and chairman of Guybernet, a Global Sustainable Development Information and Training Center. Prior to this, he worked as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Senior Lecturer in Local Government at the University of Guyana. He was also a member of the Constitution Reform Commission and the Oversight Committee on Constitution Reform.
Alexander has worked in local government in Guyana for a number of years including as a local government officer in the Ministry of Regional Development, facilitator of countless workshops on local government and as a specialist on local government issues in Guyana. He has written and published several articles on Local Government in Guyana and participated in a number of regional and international seminars on Local Government.
Randall Crane is a professor of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has done substantial studies in urban environment and development problems and is widely published in these areas. Some are applied planning problems such as the provision of urban services in poor countries, governance reform and transportation policy.
Professor Crane has also done considerable work in decentralisation and local government particularly in the area of intergovernmental finance and reform. Some of his projects include: municipal governance and urban development strategies in Yemen, central-local transfers in Kenya, municipal capacity building and decentralisation in Indonesia, analysis of the sustainability of selected public services in Mexico and Thailand and intergovernmental transfers in Guyana.
Paulette Henry is a lecturer in Social Work at the University of Guyana, Tain Campus, founder of the Women in Touch a group comprising single parents and convenor of the New Amsterdam Action Group which consists of representatives from the business and NGO and the Town Council working together for the development of the town through environmental enhancement and other activities.
Prior to this, Henry worked as a teacher, Probation and Family Welfare Officer and Resident Tutor of the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education, University of Guyana. She also worked as a facilitator in a number of community-based workshops including poverty reduction, community leadership, women in society, suicide and child abuse. Her academic research also covered some of these areas. Henry is currently working on a research on Gender and University Governance.
In her undergraduate studies, Henry won several prizes and awards including for the best graduating student in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the diploma and degree levels.
Roxanne Myers has recently been appointed Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Guyana and is a Lecturer in the Department of Government and International Affairs in the same University. She is also a facilitator on Local Government for the Empowerment of Women for Local Government project sponsored by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.
Prior to this she worked as a consultant on the Democracy and Governance Assessment in Guyana sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development; Project Coordinator, Media Monitoring Unit, Guyana Elections Commission; Income Auditor, Le Meridien Pegasus and Banker, Guyana National Cooperative Bank.
Myers academic research include Decentralisation and Gender, A Critical Analysis of Latin America-Caribbean Relations, The Expansion of UN Security Council and Small State Diplomacy - An Indigenous Approach.
Bishnu Ragoonath is a senior lecturer in the Department of Government\Behaviour Sciences at the University of the West Indies, St, Augustine Campus for almost 10 years. He teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses in Public Administration, Local Government, Comparative Politics and Latin American Politics and Government. He is also the Coordinator of the Certificate in Public Administration, Certificate in Local Government Studies and Certificate in Public Sector Human Resource Management Programs at the same University.
Before joining the faculty of UWI, Dr. Ragoonath worked as a Research Assistant to the United Nations Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC) in its sub-regional office in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and as a Local Government Reform consultant in Guyana, Dominica and most recently St. Vincent.
Ragoonath has published three books, more than thirty articles, written numerous special reports and has participated in several regional and international workshops in local governance.
His doctoral thesis is "Decentralization, Local Government and Development: Trinidad, 1952-1990.
Khemraj Rai is a member of the Joint Task Force on Local Government Reform, Programme Coordinator of the Inter-American Development Bank/Government of Guyana sponsored Low Income Settlements Programme, Chairman of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited and Chairman the Lands and Survey Board. Prior to this, Rai worked for twenty (20) years as a lecturer in Public Administration at the University of Guyana. He also worked as a Programme Manager of World Bank\Government of Guyana sponsored Basic Needs Trust Fund aimed at alleviating poverty at the community level.
