Dr Philani Mthembu is Executive Director at the Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD). He is associated with the University of South Africa (UNISA) and completed a joint doctoral programme (Dr. rer. pol.) with the Graduate School of Global Politics, Freie Universit?t Berlin, Germany, and the School of International Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, China. He co-founded the Berlin Forum on Global Politics, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of academic, expert, and public understandings of global politics. Philani received his MA in International Relations from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, where he headed the Academic Development Programme for first year students and was elected an independent candidate to the Student Representative Council.