Beyond the Headlines: Understanding the Crisis in Sudan

Roopa Gogineni is a Paris-based filmmaker and photographer. For a decade she lived in Nairobi, developing a collaborative practice alongside communities in struggle across East Africa. Her films, described as intimate and urgent, have premiered at festivals including IDFA, SXSW, Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc/Fest. She has directed documentaries for The New York Times, BBC and Al Jazeera and her work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, BFI Doc Society, CatchLight, Firelight and Chicken & Egg Pictures. She is the coordinator of Night School, a network of grassroots film clubs for displaced Sudanese communities, and co-founder of Sunduq Al Sudan, a fund supporting mutual aid groups on the frontlines of Sudan’s counterrevolutionary war.

Salman Shaikh is the Founder and CEO of The Shaikh Group (TSG), a specialised peace-building organisation dedicated to mitigating and resolving violent conflict, with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Shaikh has extensive experience leading mediation and Track II diplomacy initiatives with local actors, governments, and key international actors – with a focus on Syria, the broader Levant, the Gulf region and Iran. Before establishing TSG, Shaikh was the director of the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center, where his research focused on conflict resolution, domestic policy, and geopolitics of the Middle East. Shaikh previously worked the United Nations in a number of offices. Shaikh also served as director for policy and research in the private office of Her Highness Sheikha Moza bin Nasser al-Missned, the Consort of the former Emir of the State of Qatar.

Professor Owen Greene is a distinguished scholar in International Security and Development at the University of Bradford. With a prolific career spanning over two decades, he has authored or co-authored nine books and more than 240 research articles, reports, and chapters, and has edited over 15 volumes.

Dr Nafeez Ahmed is an award-winning investigative journalist, systems theorist and strategic communications executive. He is the author of Alt Reich: The Network War to Destroy the West from Within (2025), Failing States, Collapsing Systems (2017) A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save it (2010), The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (2006) and several other books. He is Executive Director of the Foundation for Civilisation Renewal, and creator of the AgeofTransformation.org newsletter which tracks the world’s biggest crises. A former journalist for Guardian and VICE, he does special investigations for Byline Times. His work has been used and cited in official inquiries in the US and UK, in the House of Commons, House of Lords, US Congress.