Security and Development: Towards Sustainable Peace

According to the UN’s millennium development goals: “the countries most affected by conflict, instability, and displacement have fallen furthest behind in poverty reduction.” Indeed, violent conflicts prevent development on many levels; disrupting education, creating health crises, and displacing populations. But what are the relations between conflict, poverty, and development? What are the main development challenges in contemporary post-conflict countries? How do you avoid a return to conflict and what constitutes sustainable peace? Peacebuilding efforts have had limited success in responding to these challenges, with many arguing that liberal peacebuilding has largely failed. Join our panelists who will discuss post-conflict recovery in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel; and the way forward for peacebuilding.

EVENT DETAILS

• Date: 25th February 2021
• Time: 18:30 – 20:00 (GMT+0)

SPEAKERS

• Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, Researcher, University Lecturer, and Consultant at the Paris School of International Affairs and the UN

1. Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, PhD lecturer, researcher and international consultant specializing in human security, peacebuilding, counter-terrorism and radicalization, with geographic specialization in Central Asia and Afghanistan. She has been teaching courses on Human Security (since 2004) and on Understanding and Responding to Violent Extremism (since 2018) at the Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po University) in Paris, and her Violent Extremism course at the Security Policy Program at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in the Fall of 2020. She has also taught at Columbia University (New York) as an adjunct professor and has been a visiting professor at universities in Tehran, Kabul, New Delhi, Pretoria, Moscow and Dushanbe.

Dr. Tadjbakhsh works as a consultant with various UN organizations on counter-terrorism, preventing violent extremism, human security and human development. Since 2010, she has been a consultant with the UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy in Central Asia (UNRCCA) and the UN Office on Counter Terrorism (UNOCT), and helped prepare the Joint Plan of Action for the Implementation of the UN Global Counter Strategy in Central Asia, adopted in November 2011. In 2017-2018, she worked as an Advisor to the Government of Kazakhstan during their Presidency of the UN Security Council and helped draft and negotiate a Code of Conduct for the Achievement of a World Free of Terrorism which was signed by more than 70 countries. Since 2017, she has also collaborated on numerous projects for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), including helping prepare the Guidebook on Partnerships between governments and civil society on preventing violent extremism and conducting training for journalists and the youth on countering the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes through alternative narrative development.

Between 2010 and 2016 she was a researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) working on regional security issues around Afghanistan. Since 2014, she has been the Academic Advisor to the Afghan Institute of Strategic Studies (AISS) and conducted a joint research between Sciences Po and Kabul University in 2007. Between 1993 and 2003, she worked at the UN Development Program (UNDP) based in Tashkent and Bratislava and at the UNDP Headquarters in New York as Policy Advisor on the National Human Development Reports.

• Andrew Yaw Tchie, Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Dr Andrew E. Yaw Tchie is Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), where he focuses on stabilisation, peace operations, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and security assistance in Sub-Saharan Africa and Coordinates the training for Peace Project. He previously worked at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) as a Senior Research Fellow. At RUSI, his research focuses on three strands; security approaches in Africa, conflict resilience and prevention in Africa, and peace operations in Africa – with the focal geographical areas being; the Horn, the Sahel, Lake Chad Basin, and the Gulf of Guinea. He previously worked for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan as a Civil Affairs Officer (2015-17), the UNDP in Nepal (2014-15) and the Commonwealth Secretariat (2009-10).

• Jaclyn Grace, Development and Technical Manager in Chemonics’ United Kingdom Division

Jaclyn Grace is a Programme Technical Manager in Chemonics’ United Kingdom Division. She is concurrently pursuing her Masters in Development Studies at the University of Oxford, focusing on conflict and stabilisation in West Africa. Her ongoing academic research undertakes a comparative analysis of evolving conflict dynamics across Malian and Burkinabe borderlands. At Chemonics, she most recently supported a pilot technical assistance programme in Mali, collaborating with the UK Embassy in Bamako and the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund: Sahel. Previously, Jaclyn worked on several international development programmes across Sub-Saharan Africa, including an education programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a countering violent extremism programme in Mauritania.

Academic Chair: Dr David Rampton