UWI sociologist and international development consultant, Dr Leith Dunn, has been named a member of the Commonwealth Observer Group for the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Elections to be held in Zambia this month.

Dr Dunn, who left the island last weekend, will participate at the request of the Commonwealth Secretary General, His Excellency Don McKinnon. She will be part of a ten-member delegation of eminent persons drawn from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean who will also observe the elections. Dr Dunn is Head of the Mona Unit of the UWI Centre for Gender and Development Studies and a leading researcher in social and economic issues affecting women and children globally. She is the former Assistant Representative at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and has held senior programme officer positions with the Canadian development agency CUSO and the British aid agency Christian Aid.

This is the second occasion on which Dr Dunn is being asked to serve as a Commonwealth election observer for polls in Southern Africa. In March 2002, she was also named to serve on the Commonwealth Observer Delegation for controversial elections in Zimbabwe. In requesting her to serve again as part of the Observer Group for Zambia, the Commonwealth Secretary General said the Group was being mandated to help determine whether the conditions exist for a free expression of the will of the electors and if the results of the elections reflect the wishes of the people of Zambia.

Her latest assignment comes against the background of an active career in both community development and academic engagement. She co-authored a Commonwealth Foundation study entitled “Guidelines for Good Policy and Practice for Non-governmental Agencies’, which was translated into over 10 languages internationally. Her publications also include numerous studies for the International Labour Organization, the ILO. Dr. Dunn is a graduate of the University of the West Indies and the London School of Economics, where she was awarded her doctoral degree in 1994.
She is married to UWI academic, Dr Hopeton Dunn, with whom she has co-authored several academic works.

The Commonwealth Observer Group, of which she is a part, is headed by the former Prime Minister of Mauritius, Hon. Paul Berenger. The Group will meet initially in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, after which members will be deployed in smaller groups throughout the country, ahead of the September 28th election date. She returns to Jamaica in early October.