Abakhon Sultonnazarov is in charge of overall management, strategic planning, financial reporting, project delivery and human resources across the Central Asian region. He joined IWPR with 15 years’ management experience with the UN and other international organisations in Central Asia, Afghanistan and USA. Expert on Central Asian regional politics and human rights with proven abilities of establishing successful relationships with national governments, international organizations, donors and partners.

Beka Bajelidze joined IWPR in 2004 to manage IWPR’s projects in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as in the republics of the North Caucasus. Before that, he worked as project manager with the OSCE and project assistant with the US National Democratic Institute. He has a degree in foreign languages and a master’s degree in public administration from the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs. Beka is a native speaker of Georgian, fluent in English, Russian and proficient in Turkish.

Lola Olimova (Khalikjanova) is a professional journalist. Before joining IWPR in 2006, she worked as deputy editor-in-chief of the social and political weekly ‘Business & Politics’, and simultaneously headed the international department at the Russian-Tajik (Slavonic) University. She has also worked as a presenter on Tajik national TV and as editor-in-chief of the Russian service of the state news agency Khovar.

Gulafshon serves as Programmme Coordinator & Investigative Journalism Mentor for the IWPR Tajikistan. She is responsible for mentoring, editing, and producing journalistic investigations developed by IWPR trainees. Gulafshon has graduated from the Department of Journalism of Tajik National University (TNU) in 2007. She started her professional career as a reporter of the Tajik language newspaper Ruzi Nav (New Day) in 2003 while being a university student. Then she continued her journalistic experience in several other independent Tajik papers such as Farazh and Samak. At the same time Ms. Soqieva taught investigative journalism at the TNU. Gulafshon joined IWPR in 2013.