Mark Malan is a senior researcher and head of the Peace Missions Programme at the Institute for Security Studies. He joined the ISS in January 1996 as head of the Training for Peace in Southern Africa project, which has facilitated a series of peacekeeping training interventions for Southern African military and police officers. Malan has presented numerous papers on security issues locally and internationally, and has published extensively on issues relating to civil-military relations, regional security and peacekeeping in Africa. Prior to joining the ISS, he was a senior lecturer in Political Science at the Faculty of Military Science of the University of Stellenbosch.

Sarah Meek is the head of the Arms Management Programme at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, South Africa. She returned to the ISS in January 2002 after a break of three years, having previously been with the ISS as senior researcher on the arms programme from 1996–1999. In between, she was manager of the security and peace-building programme at International Alert in London, a conflict prevention organisation. She has also worked at the United Nations in New York and the Monterey Institute for International Studies in California.

Thokozani Thusi joined the ISS in March 2002 as a researcher in the Arms Management Programme, focusing on small arms in East Africa, the Great Lakes and the Horn of Africa. Prior to joining the ISS, Thokozani worked as a researcher at the Centre for Southern African Studies (CSAS) at the School of Government, University of the Western Cape, where he also qualified for his BA in Political Studies and MPA degrees.

Jeremy Ginifer is a senior researcher on the Training for Peace Programme (TfP) at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) in Oslo. He joined NUPI in 2001 and prior to that he worked in various research positions at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and the University of Southampton, UK, within the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies. He works on security, conflict and development issues, particularly post-conflict demilitarisation, and has undertaken work for the UN and other organisations in this area.

Patrick Coker is the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Policy Adviser in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations, New York. Prior to this assignment, he served with the UN Mission in Sierra Leone in both a military and a civilian capacity. As civilian public information officer with UNAMSIL, he was acting spokesman of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone and head of the community liaison and public outreach unit of the public information section. As a military officer, Patrick was deployed as a Military Observer in December 1999, and was named Military Spokesman in June 2000, dealing with both the national and international media on military and disarmament matters of the peace operation in Sierra Leone. E-mail: cokerp@un.org