Her work focuses on the long-term reintegration of female and child ex-combatants, including gendered barriers to recognition, eligibility, social acceptance, political participation and post-war livelihoods. She has led participatory research and filmmaking processes with women ex-combatants in Aceh/Indonesia, Burundi, Colombia, Mindanao/Philippines, Nepal and Uganda, producing policy-facing analysis, public engagement and two participatory documentaries on women’s post-conflict experiences. Her PhD at the London School of Economics examined international actors’ engagement with child soldiering in Sierra Leone and Myanmar. She has designed and delivered trainings, university teaching and participatory learning processes on gender, peacebuilding, DDR/reintegration and participatory methods.

Evelyn combines academic research with training, facilitation, feminist MEL and policy-oriented learning. She has worked with organisations including the Berghof Foundation, LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security, Agency for Peacebuilding, Justice Rapid Response, Impunity Watch, GCERF and Women Mediators across the Commonwealth.

To read more about Evelyn Pauls, kindly visit: https://berghof-foundation.org/about/people/evelyn-pauls

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Currently, he serves as a Demobilization Advisor supporting Ethiopia’s National DDR Programme under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in collaboration with the Ethiopian National Rehabilitation Commission (NRC). Since the signing of the Pretoria Peace Agreement in November 2022, Colonel Gosaye has been actively engaged in implementing Ethiopia’s national DDR process, contributing to the successful demobilization and reintegration of more than 87,000 ex-combatants across Tigray and other regions—a public contribution recognized through national media and partner reports.

Gosaye Tilahun Zeleke is highly experienced in the implementation of the United Nations Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Standards (IDDRS), including rehabilitation programming, psychosocial support, civic training systems, and WAM. Professionally, he specializes in bridging high-level strategic coordination with federal institutions, UN agencies, and international partners.

He holds a Master’s Degree in Peace and Security Studies and a Master’s Degree in Business Leadership, both from Addis Ababa University.

To read more about Colonel Gosaye Tilahun Zeleke, kindly visit: https://nrc.gov.et/?page_id=1490 

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He has more than ten years of experience designing, leading, managing, and implementing humanitarian, peace, and security nexus programs that promote stability, community resilience, and peace in conflict-affected countries. From 2016 to 2023, Omar worked with IOM in both Somalia and South Sudan, implementing peace and security programs. Omar’s experience included Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR); Security Sector Reform (SSR); Youth Peace & Security (YPS); Prevention and Countering of Violent Extremism (PCVE); community-oriented policing; migration and border management.

In 2019, with IOM, Omar was among the team leading the pioneering DDR programme, focusing on the rehabilitation and reintegration of women formerly associated with armed groups in Somalia. In South Sudan, he led the community policing portfolio, fostering collaboration between police and communities in the border areas. In his current role, with the United Nations Transitional Assistance Mission (UNTMIS) in Somalia, he made significant contributions to the Somalia national Prevention and Countering of Violent Extremism (PCVE) strategy (2024-2027).

His academic achievements include an MSc in Security Sector Management (SSM) from Cranfield University, UK, and an MA in Global Security and Strategy at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), UK.

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Paul is a Peace, Security and Justice professional with extensive experience in policy communication, research, design and implementation of Peace building, Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR), Stabilisation, Security Governance and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programmes. He has facilitated several DDR and Advanced Stabilisation courses across Peacekeeping Training Centres in Africa. He was lead expert on the team that convened the First DDR National Dialogue in Nigeria in collaboration with Office of the National Security Adviser to the President of Nigeria. Paul is Country Director International Alert, Nigeria. Prior to joining International Alert, he was Conflict Adviser at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Nigeria, DDR Expert-EU Africa Peace Facility, Community Management Specialist, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and taught Peace and Security Studies and conducted ground breaking research at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

Paul has supported several Military Operations such as the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), Chad and International Organizations working in conflict contexts in a range of countries including Somalia, North-East-Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Sierra-Leone and Liberia. He strengthened the policy and institutional capacity of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and the Defector Rehabilitation Programme in Somalia on Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) and was part of the design of Strategic Communication Actions and Effects Framework to promote defections in Somalia.

Paul has a Masters Degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Ibadan, is an Alumnus of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) and has attended several professional development courses across the world.

To read more about Paul Nyulaku, kindly visit: https://www.international-alert.org/staff/paul-nyulaku/.

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Her research focuses on the governance of countering violent extremism in sub-Saharan Africa. She is specifically interested in the trajectories of former recruits of the terrorist group Boko Haram and their reintegration in Cameroon.

Lydie is actively involved in her field of expertise and worked as coordinator of PREV-IMPACT project for the UNESCO Chair in the Prevention of Radicalization and Violent Extremism in Canada before becoming a research associate for a study led with the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie.

Previously, she served at the Court of Arbitration of Côte d’Ivoire, in the Training Section of the International Bureau for Children’s Rights and as a researcher with the Peace Operations Research Network in Montreal.

To read more about Lydie, kindly visit: https://lydiec.belporo.com/

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Simbarashe is also a research associate at Stellenbosch University in the department of Sociology and Social Anthropology. His research interests collectively contribute to an overarching theme of youth subjectivities and how these intersect in complex ways with various aspects of everyday life such as politics, livelihoods, and transitions. Simbarashe is also interested in questions around informality, religiosity, displacement, youth political expressions in spaces of protracted economic and political crisis.

Simbarashe was awarded the African Peacebuilding Network Research Fellowship (2021-2022) by the Social Sciences Research Council (SSRC), the African Humanities Programme Fellowship, from the American Learned Societies, Carnegie Corporation, New York, USA. Simbarashe’s recent publications are in African Affairs, the International Journal of Transitional Justice, African Security Review, African Identities, Political Psychology and the Extractive Industries and Society among other journals.

Simbarashe also serves as an editorial board member of Anthropology Southern Africa and the journal of Religion and Development.

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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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He conducts research into, and supports efforts to build capacity to address, the illicit trade, diversion, and uncontrolled proliferation of conventional arms, including small arms and light weapons (SALW) and ammunition.

Paul has authored and co-authored various publications on the international arms trade and conventional arms control, with a recent focus on the Arms Trade Treaty, weapons and ammunition management, and the diversion of conventional arms and ammunition.

Before joining UNIDIR, he was the head of the Policy and Capacity Support Unit at the Small Arms Survey, Deputy Director of the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies at Coventry University, and Director of the Arms Transfers Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

To read more about Paul Holtom, kindly visit: https://www.unidir.org/staff/paul-holtom

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Before joining the faculty at Leiden, he taught at the University of Virginia and as a visiting assistant professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Schulhofer-Wohl has held fellowships at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, in the International Security Program and the Middle East Initiative, and at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at the School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University.

Schulhofer-Wohl’s research agenda, on the conduct of civil wars, includes an empirical focus on the Middle East, but addresses questions about civil wars as a general matter, and draws on comparisons across diverse countries.

His core research projects study the interaction between civil war belligerents at three levels of analysis: quagmire as the macro-level result of the interaction between the warring parties; warfighting choices, focusing on alliance behavior and the operational goals of fighting, both meso-level behaviors; and, at the micro-level, the behavioral determinants of individual actions in situations of group conflict.

He is the author of Quagmire in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2020). His work has also been published in the European Journal of Political Economy, International Security, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Rationality and Society, and Science.

To read more about Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl, kindly visit: https://jschulhoferwohl.net/

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She has also consulted for the International Organization for Migration | U.N. Agency for Migration in the Latin American and Middle East North Africa (MENA) regions and is on their roster of experts in Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR).

McFee holds a doctorate in Human Development from The University of Chicago, as well as an M.A. from the same institution and an MBA from Simmons University in Boston. She has obtained Executive Certificates from various institutions in Leading Change (HKS), Development in Conflict-Affected and Fragile Contexts (The Geneva Institute), and Climate Change and Policy (HKS).

To read more about Erin K. McFee, kindly visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinmcfee/; trustafterbetrayal.org

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