Surichai Wun'gaeo

Surichai Wun’Gaeo (Co-Chair)

Rotary Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Thailand

Professor Emeritus of Sociology Surichai Wun’gaeo is currently Director at Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Chulalongkorn University. After finishing his post-graduate studies at University of Tokyo, he has successively held various academic posts including Director, Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute and visiting professorships at various universities including Hitotsubashi, University of Illinois-UC and Humbolt. He has been Professor of Sociology, Chulalongkorn University, since 2009. Ajarn Surichai is the current chair of Focus’ Board.

Walden Bello

Walden Bello (Co-Chair)

Focus on the Global South, Philippines

Walden Bello is a senior analyst, and he co-founded Focus in 1995 with UNDP Senior Advisor Kamal Malhotra. Until recently, he was a representative to Congress in the Republic of the Philippines. A 2003 recipient of the prestigious Right Livelihood Award (the “Alternative Nobel Prize”), Walden is considered the most respected anti-globalization thinker in Asia by the Belgian newspaper Le Soir. 

Mercia Andrews

Mercia Andrews

Trust for Community Outreach and Education, South Africa

Mercia Andrews began her professional life as a teacher. She then moved to work in Non Government Organizations (NGO’s) where she established herself as an activist working with Labour and Community Outreach, the South African Domestic Workers’ Union and the Trust for Community Outreach & Education, where is currently working as a Director. Mercia has committed her life to social service concerned with health and socio-economic issues.

Robin Broad

Professor of Development, School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C.

Robin Broad has co-founded coalitions — including International Allies of the Roundtable Against Mining in El Salvador and the Philippine Development Forum — that link civil-society organizations from development, environment, human rights and other organizations with practitioners and activists. She has served or is serving on the boards of directors of Focus on the Global South, Earthworks, Goodweave (formerly Rugmark), the Bank Information Center, and Food First and is currently a Fellow at the Vermont Law School and the Samdhana Institute.  

Narumon Arunotai

Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute (CUSRI), Thailand

Dr Narumon Arunotai is currently the Director of CUSRI. She was awarded the National Outstanding Researcher of 2016 for her dedication to educating the ethnic group of fishermen by working deep in the field with indigenous people on the coastal regions of Thailand, who were underprivileged and were marginalized in sense of economy, society and culture.


Since 2010, she has been appointed to be an Advisor and Committee for various institutes such as National Committee for the Revitalization of Chao Lay Livelihoods, Project to develop community knowledge-based database system for empowering the most marginalized and vulnerable indigenous groups in Thailand, etc.

Silvia Ribeiro

Silvia Ribeiro

ETC Group, Mexico

Silvia Ribeiro is the Latin America Director for ETC group. She has a background as a journalist and environmental campaigner in Uruguay, Brazil and Sweden. She has extensive experience in social and environmental advocacy. As a civil society representative, she has attended and followed the negotiations of several of United Nations environmental treaties. She has also been an invited speaker at many civil society events around the world speaking on transgenic and other new technologies, corporate concentration, intellectual property, indigenous and farmers’ rights. Silvia has also produced a number of articles related to these issues, that have been published in Latin American, European and North American magazines and papers, as well as chapters in several books. 

Joy Chavez

Action for Economic Reforms, the Philippines

Joy Chavez is the Trustee and the Senior Fellow for Action for Economic Reforms. She was a Senior Associate and Philippines Programme Coordinator with the regional policy research and advocacy organization Focus on the Global South until 2011. She works on the political economy of industrial policy, the nexus of economic policy making and public health, and regional social policy.

Joy volunteers for the Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy on the strengthening of the social dimension in regional integration and the democratization of ASEAN processes to include non-state actors; and the Right to Know. Right Now! Coalition on the campaign for the passage of the People’s Freedom of Information Act.

Peter Rosset

ECOSUR, Mexico

Peter Rosset is a professor and researcher in the Department of Agriculture, Society and Environment and the Research Group on the Scaling-up of Agroecology at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) in Mexico, and is also a professor at the Graduate Program of Sociology (PPGS) of the Universidad Estadual do Ceará (UECE) in Brazil. He has been a visiting professor in the Social Research Institute (CUSRI) at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, where Focus is based. He is also former a long-time secretariat staff member of La Via Campesina International, and is a well-known activist and writer. In all of these capacities his work and activism have focussed on peasant agroecology, food sovereignty, agrarian reform, and the defense of land and territory, and peasant and indigenous autonomy.