Trygve Olson is a political and public affairs professional who brings nearly twenty years of experience, working on five continents, to his profession. He has served in his present capacity since January 2001, and also served as IRI's Resident Program Officer in Lithuania in 1997.

Prior to rejoining IRI in 2001, Mr. Olson was a founding partner in the grassroots lobbying, political consulting and public affairs firm Public Issue Management, LLP. While a partner at Public Issue Management, Trygve managed a number of high profile grassroots lobbying campaigns for clients in the aviation, technology, and healthcare sectors. For two years he co-managed the grassroots side of a national campaign on behalf of several of America's largest technology companies and the Computer and Communications Industry Association. Also during this prior Mr. Olson served as the primary campaign consultant to a coalition that was victorious in the 2000 Lithuanian Parliamentary elections.

A native of Wisconsin, Trygve worked in the Administration of then-Governor Tommy Thompson and also ran a number of Congressional, State Senatorial and State Legislative campaigns during the early and mid 1990's. Over the course of his career in politics, Mr. Olson has worked on in excess of 100 campaigns for all levels of public office from the local to national level. Since first volunteering for IRI in 1995 -- when he went to Poland to run a get out the vote campaign for young people -- Mr. Olson has helped advise political parties and candidates in numerous countries throughout the world including nearly all of Central and Eastern Europe, Indonesia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Serbia.

Trygve is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. He currently makes his home in Vilnius, Lithuania with his wife, Erika Veberyte, who serves as the Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to the Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament.

Lyman and Morrison will discuss the Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored Independent Task Force Report on the US and Africa. The Report argues that Africa is becoming steadily more central to the United States and to the rest of the world in ways that transcend humanitarian interests. Africa now plays an increasingly significant role in supplying energy, preventing the spread of terrorism, and halting the devastation of HIV/AIDS. Africa's growing importance is reflected in the intensifying competition with China and other countries for both access to African resources and influence in this region. A more comprehensive U.S. policy toward Africa is needed, the report states, and it lays out recommendations for policymakers to craft that policy. The report is available at www.cfr.org.

Princeton N. Lyman is the Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow and Director for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. Ambassador Lyman served for over three decades at the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), completing his government service as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. He was previously Ambassador to South Africa, Ambassador to Nigeria, Director of Refugee Programs and Director of the USAID Mission to Ethiopia.

From 1999 to 2000, he was Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. Ambassador Lyman held the position of Executive Director of the Global Interdependence Initiative of the Aspen Institute (1999 to 2003) and has received the President's Distinguished Service Award and the Department of State Distinguished Honor Award. Ambassador Lyman has published on foreign policy, African affairs, economic development, HIV/AIDS, UN reform, and peacekeeping. He coauthored the Council on Foreign Relations Special Report entitled Giving Meaning to "Never Again": Seeking an Effective Response to the Crisis in Darfur and Beyond. His book, Partner to History: The U.S. Role in South Africa's Transition to Democracy, was published in 2002. He earned his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University. He serves as the Co-Director of the Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored Independent Task Force on Africa.

J. Stephen Morrison is Director of the Africa Program and the Task Force on HIV/AIDS at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He joined CSIS in January 2000 and in late 2001, launched the CSIS Task Force on HIV/AIDS. The task force is a multiyear project co-chaired by Senators Bill Frist (R-TN) and John Kerry (D-MA) and funded by the Gates Foundation and the Catherine Marron Foundation. Dr. Morrison co-chaired the reassessment of the U.S. approach to Sudan that laid the basis for the Bush administration push for a negotiated peace settlement, and in the summer of 2002 he organized an energy expert mission to the Sudan peace negotiations in Kenya.

From 1996 through early 2000, Dr. Morrison served on the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff, where he was responsible for African affairs and global foreign assistance issues. In that position, he led the State Department's initiative on illicit diamonds and chaired an interagency review of the U.S. government's crisis humanitarian programs. From 1993 to 1995, Dr. Morrison conceptualized and launched USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives; he served as the office's first Deputy Director and created post-conflict programs in Angola and Bosnia. From 1992 until mid-1993, Dr. Morrison was the Democracy and Governance Adviser to the U.S. embassies and USAID missions in Ethiopia and Eritrea. He serves as the Co-Director of the Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored Independent Task Force on Africa.

David Backer is a CDDRL post-doctoral fellow in the academic year 2005-2006. He is also an Assistant Professor of Politics at the College of William and Mary. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Michigan. His dissertation project was an evaluation of the impact of participation by victims in South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). He is extending this research by comparing attitudes of victims and the general public, as well as conducting a longitudinal study of victims' attitudes about reparations. In addition, Backer is undertaking a parallel study of victims' responses to the truth commission processes in Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. His talk at the CDDRL seminar will focus on the South African experience with transitional justice.

Professor Tom Heller of Stanford University Law School and CDDRL's Program on Rule of Law will speak on his current research.