Anna is an author of the book Terrorist Propaganda, Recruitment and Branding: Selling Terror Online and has a PhD in International studies from Queen’s University Belfast. She also holds an MA in International Conflict Studies from King’s College London and MSc in Security Studies from UCL.

Anna’s research interests are focusing on terrorist propaganda. She is particularly interested in exploring the role of marketing and social media in the recruitment process and extremists’ content creation as well as the role of disinformation and misinformation. In her research, Anna is looking at jihadist, far-right and mixed ideology groups in the West and in Russia/post-Soviet space.

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Her professional work experiences include four years of managing army demobilization and reintegration programs in Ethiopia, four years of managing regional development programs in Ethiopia with Action Aid International, and more than 15 years of coordinating the implementation of the Africa Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) in the Horn of Africa with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

Notable professional achievements include successful implementation of the demobilization and reintegration of ex-soldier’s funded by the World Bank, and managing the establishment of the Regional Mediation Support Unit, and the Regional Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development program within IGAD.

She holds two Masters Degrees, including an MA in International Relations, and an MA in “Managing Peace and Security in Africa”, both from Addis Ababa University. Legawork additionally has several international diplomas including in “leadership and development studies” from Indian Institute of Development Studies, India, and “Peace and security studies in Africa” from Uppsala University, Sweden.

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As a political scientist, Vilhelm has experience in peace and security initiatives across various countries, including Mozambique, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Nigeria. He has worked on disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) processes in multiple settings. At FBA, he supports different initiatives such as capacity building, advising and training. His recent work includes supporting DDR and the combat against violent extremism in Mozambique, as well as working with FBA’s support to veteran reintegration in Ukraine.

Previously, Vilhelm served as a Desk Officer at the Embassy of Sweden in Maputo, Mozambique. He holds a Master of Science in Politics from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a Bachelor’s degree in Politics from Lund University.

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He joined the Canadian Navy in 1975 and graduated from the Royal Military College in 1980 and served in numerous staff, command, exchange, training and operational positions onboard ship and ashore. In 1991 he went as a UN peacekeeper to El Salvador which changed his life’s focus from the Navy to peacekeeping and DDR.

Seconded to the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre (PPC) in 1997 he co-created the first formal DDR course which was eventually taught around the world. When he retired from the Navy he continued as Director of DDR Programmes at the PPC, further developing DDR and co-authoring the DDR Handbook – A Field and Classroom Guide and initiated the Integrated DDR Training Group which brought together like minded DDR training Centres to help advance and standardize global DDR Training.

Kees was selected to be the Senior Advisor DDR at the Swedish National Defence College from 2004 to 2008, where his duties included DDR Training and DDR-related advice to Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He helped initiate and worked with the Stockholm Initiative on DDR (SIDDR) which looked at the issues of DDR and peace negotiations, DDR financing and improving reintegration. He was an integral part of the development of the UN Integrated DDR Standards, the first significant multi-agency UN DDR guidance document which will helps standardize terminology, policy and procedures for DDR throughout the UN.

From 2008-12, Kees was the first Coordinator of the UN Inter-Agency Working Group on DDR where he helped to coordinate 17 UN agencies working with the IDDRS and DDR at both the policy and field levels. Together they collected field lessons, develop knowledge management, training and advance DDR policy, training and knowledge from around the world. Together with UNITAR he helped create the first online training program which continues to expand.

As a consultant Kees continues to work in/on most conflict countries with a DDR element. His work has taken him to global hotspots such as Libya, Lake Chad basin, Mali, Philippines, DRC, Burundi, Colombia and Yemen just to mention a few, while working for a host of countries, different UN Agencies as well as members of the IDDRTG and other training institutes.

Fluent in English, Spanish and French, Kees strongly believes in cooperation and coordination between all DDR actors.

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Mary Beth has over ten years’ experience researching the disengagement and reintegration of violent extremists. She has compiled and analyzed large scale datasets on violent extremist disengagement and re-engagement and conducted in-depth interviews with violent extremists representing a range of ideologies. She recently authored a report for the RESOLVE Network on lessons from over 382 studies of DDR for the reintegration of violent extremists and is working on studies that examine how information about rehabilitation and the framing of programming influence community acceptance of ex-combatants.  Her other research focuses on the social bases of support for political violence, and armed parties in particular, in developed and developing democracies.

Mary Beth’s research has been published in a number of journals including the Journal of Peace Research, Security Studies, Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and International Studies Quarterly. She serves on the Editorial Board of Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Perspectives on Terrorism, Journal of Deradicalization, and Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression. Mary Beth is a member of the RESOLVE Network’s Research Advisory Council and AVERT Research Network. 

She received her PhD and MA in Politics from Princeton University and BAs in Mathematics and History from Drew University.

To read more about Mary Beth Altier, kindly visit: https://www.sps.nyu.edu/homepage/academics/faculty-directory/16202-mary-beth-altier.html

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Bloom conducts research in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia and speaks eight languages. She is the author of six books and over 80 articles on violent extremism including Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (Columbia 2005), Bombshell: Women and Terror (University of Pennsylvania 2011), Small Arms: Children and Terror (Cornell 2019) and Pastels and Pedophiles: Inside the Mind of QAnon with Sophia Moskalenko (Stanford 2021). Her next book, Veiled Threats: Women and Jihad in expected in 2024 with Cornell University Press. 

Bloom was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and has held research or teaching positions at Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, and McGill Universities. She advises national and international human rights organizations and serves on the Counter-Radicalization working group of the Anti-Defamation League, the UN Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate (UNCTED), and on the board of Women Without Borders.

Bloom has a PhD in political science from Columbia University, Masters in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and Bachelors in Russian, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from McGill University.

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Dr. Özerdem specializes in conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and reintegration of ex-combatants. With over 20 years of field research experience in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, El Salvador, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia, Nigeria, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, and Turkey, Dr. Özerdem has undertaken numerous research projects that were funded by the UK’s Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) (faith-based conflict prevention); British Academy (youth and peacebuilding); US Institute of Peace (reintegration of ex-combatants); and various European Union funding schemes (conflict transformation and leadership).

Dr. Özerdem has published extensively (15 books and numerous journal articles, book chapters, and op-eds) and, amongst others, is the author of Post-war Recovery: Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (2008); co-author of Managing Emergencies and Crises (2011 & 2022); co-editor of Child Soldiers: From Recruitment to Reintegration (2011); co-author of Youth in Conflict and Peacebuilding: Mobilization, Reintegration and Reconciliation (2015); co-editor of Local Ownership in International Peacebuilding (2015); co-author of Peacebuilding: An Introduction (2015); co-editor of Comparing Peace Processes (2019); co-editor of Routledge Handbook of Peace, Security and Development (2020), and co-editor of Routledge Handbook of Conflict Response and Leadership in Africa (2021).

To read more about Alpaslan Özerdem, kindly visit: https://carterschool.gmu.edu/profiles/aozerdem

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An Eisenhower Global Fellow and a TED Senior Fellow, in the past decade Benedetta has held research and teaching positions at West Point, The Institute for National Security Studies and Tel Aviv University, among others. Her research focuses on armed groups, internal wars, and protection of civilians.

Dr. Berti is the author of four books, including “Armed Political Organizations. From Conflict to Integration” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Her work and research have appeared, among others, in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, the National Interest, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times; as well as in Civil Wars, Democratization, Government & Opposition, Mediterranean Politics, the Middle East Journal, Parameters, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Terrorism and Politica Violence.

She holds a BA in Oriental Studies from the University of Bologna, an MA and PhD in International Relations from The Fletcher School (Tufts University), and two post-doctorates in International Relations and Political Science, from Hebrew University and Ben Gurion University.

To read more about Benedetta Berti, kindly visit: http://www.benedettaberti.com/ or @benedettabertiw on social media.

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Khaled has accumulated an expertise in supporting national stakeholders to design and implement complex DDR and CVR programs that had led to significant peace consolidation. As a senior staff of UN Peacekeeping operations, and given his background as a professional diplomat with the government of Egypt, Khaled was a pioneer in negotiating sensitive Security Council mandates on DDR, CVR and SSR and other stabilization measures with national authorities both at the civilian and the military levels to ensure a transparent, inclusive, gender and human rights based processes that would lead to effective DDR processes and programs.

He has been praised for his innovative approaches and some of the programs he conceived have been considered as an added value to international Best Practice. He also played a strategic role in providing political and security advice to UN senior leadership including DPO, UNCT and UN Humanitarian country teams (HCT) on DDR, CVR and SSR issues and their impact on the overall mandated objectives of the UN particularly in Protection of Civilians, Restoration of State Authority and supporting complex and participatory political processes. Khaled has also played a crucial role in advocacy and resource mobilization given his long experiences in coordinating multiple DDR stakeholders both at national and international levels.

Khaled worked in several countries in the African continent, such Sudan, South Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR). He also served in other conflict-affected settings such as Lybia and Yemen. He is currently the Principal Coordinator of the Stabilization Support Unit in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the DRC.

Khaled is fully bilingual (English- French). His mother tongue is Arabic and he is also fluent in Italian.

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She brings a development perspective to the often-securitized DDR and PRR approaches and guides UNDP to provide sustainable reintegration solutions for former members of armed forces and groups, their families and communities.

Glaucia brings over 20 years of experience in the UN system, of which 15 years with UNDP as a peacebuilding and development practitioner. She was part of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery from 2006 to 2014 and the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support from 2014 to 2018 and has since then been with the Crisis Bureau. Her one-the-ground technical advice and support has spanned across several countries and regions over these years – Burundi, Central African Republic, Colombia, Comoros, Congo-Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia/Aceh, Iraq, Niger, Nigeria, The Philippines, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, Ukraine – and the Great Lakes and Lake Chad Basin regions and institutions.

Since 2018, Glaucia has provided dedicated technical assistance to the formulation of Prosecution, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (PRR) strategies within the framework of counterterrorism, with focus on community-based reintegration (in Iraq for families with perceived association with ISIL) and through regional approaches in the Lake Chad Basin countries (Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria in response to the Boko Haram Crisis).

Glaucia has a Law Degree (1990) from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and a PhD in International Relations with focus on Statebuilding/Peacebuilding (2005) from The Graduate Institute of International Studies, in Geneva, Switzerland.

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