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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Dr Ghazi is an international expert in managing terrorist offenders within correctional institutions. With over 8 years of specialized field-research inside Super-Max prisons, her PhD focused on disengagement, de-radicalization, rehabilitation, and reintegration. She has worked and collaborated with more than 30 organizations in 16 countries, including serving as a Subject Matter Expert with esteemed international institutions such as the NATO Strategic Direction–South Hub, the OSCE, the African Union, the Islamic Military Counter-Terrorism Coalition, the Small Arms Survey, USAID, and ICESCO. Her training experience includes working with regional law enforcement and security agencies, notably as an expert with UNOCT (The Arab Interior Ministers Council-Tunisia) and UNODC (Asia-Pacific region). She also led the national design and evaluation framework for correctional and reintegration indicators in Saudi Arabia.

Dr Ghazi is an alumna of several prestigious international programs for professionals and practitioners, through which she gained field experiences within security and social institutions across various countries. This includes participation in the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), the OSCE–UNODA Peace and Security Scholarship, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)/Manama Dialogue, The Hague Academy for Local Governance, and the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) in Australia.

To read more about Maha Ghazi, kindly visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-maha-ghazi-578260132/.

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Since 2013, Priscyll has worked extensively in research and the NGO sector in the field of DDR, transitional justice, gender-based violence in armed conflicts and mine action. Particularly, in Colombia and Nepal, she has engaged with different stakeholders, such as children and adolescent victims of the armed conflict, DDR practitioners, men, women and queer (ex)-combatants, military and police personnels, public officials, and women and feminist grassroots organizations.

Priscyll’s research focuses on the political agency and participation of women and queer people that have joined non-state armed groups and the difficulties of navigating the transition to “civilian society” in the aftermath of peace deals. Within this scope, she has explored understudied areas of DDR, such as family ties, parenthood, youth agency, political militancy as well as embodied and emotional aspect of transitions from war-to-peace. Priscyll has also developed alternative forms of pedagogies and methods to work in complex settings and with different actors. She has extensively published in renowned peer-review journals in the field of DDR, and she is the co-author of the graphic novel Militancia feminista post-lucha armada de las farianas (2024) with Zulay Carolina Rueda.

To read more about Priscyll Anctil Avoine, kindly visit: www.priscyllanctil.com

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Prior to this, she was a Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, and completed her PhD at the University of Manchester, UK. She also volunteers as an International Liaison Coordinator at Interventions for Advocacy and Effective Community Engagements (IFACE), an NGO in Liberia.

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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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Lt Col Konaté has many academic achievements, including studies in the United States and Germany, remarkably at the Defense Institute of International Legal Studies (DILLS), Lackland and Garmisch. Studied topics include for example regional security and programme on terrorism and security studies.

Lt Col Konaté has had many temoporary duty assignments at a number of military schools in Mali and regional Africa. From 2006 to 2013, he was deployed to Tombouctou as a Company Commander. Beyond this, Lt Col Konaté has also served as a staff officer, instructor and intelligence officer in his career.

From 2017 to 2018, he was Chief Intelligence Analyst in charge of reporting on the DDR process in Mali, and he is currently the point of contact on DDR with the EMP-ABB.

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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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Mark has a focus on identifying business opportunities, assessing ESG (environmental, social and governance) risks, responsible business conduct, value chain analysis, Disarmament, Demobilization & Reintegration (DDR), conflict analysis, conflict-sensitivity and security & human rights. He has worked worldwide in many fragile settings, including Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Colombia, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan.

Over the last 15 years, Mark has focused on action-oriented research and consultancy work on how to strengthen investors’ and companies’ strategies and operational capacity to work in a responsible way in fragile settings, as well as to improve value chains and support SMEs, Internally Displaced Persons, refugees and former combatants, with the ultimate goal to contribute to equitable development and peace building. He has worked in various capacities in projects financed by multinational companies, universities, NGOs (including IDH, SOMO, Oxfam Novib, International Alert, MercyCorps), multilateral institutions (including World Bank Group/IFC, UNDP, UNHCR, IOM, ITC), the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish Folke Bernadotte Academy and the European Union.

In 2017, Mark founded Bureau Van Dorp, a consultancy firm specializing in responsible business and private sector development in emerging markets and fragile and conflict-affected settings, working in partnership with a network of international and local consultants. Since 2022, Mark is also a Senior Associate at ODI and a Research Associate at LSE IDEAS, the foreign think tank of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

To read more about Mark van Dorp, kindly visit: http://bureauvandorp.nl/

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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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