Peace Practice
“Learning and change are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other. Learning is a process of change and adaptation. And if we want to bring about change in the world, we have to start with ourselves and be willing to learn and adapt.”
My Peacebuilding Work
As a seasoned international development and peacebuilding professional, I am dedicated to complexity informed approaches to aid and peace programming that can unlock new possibilities for interventions to become more relevant to context, more adaptive to change and ultimately make more of a difference to the lives of poor and conflict effected people around the world.
I am grounded with an in-depth and nuanced understanding of many of the underlying systemic challenges and structural constraints that stand as barriers to peacebuilding and aid effectiveness. I understand that the key to greater impact is in attending more to how we do what we do, over what we do.
That’s my focus. I bring practical, transformative insights to understanding and working with many of the core challenges that actors often face when trying to evolve their ways of working. These insights are drawn from extensive field experience combined with deep knowledge of peacebuilding theories and practices.
Here are some of the practice areas I’m passionate about:
Collaborating, learning and adapting
Complexity aware monitoring
Thinking and working politically
Conflict sensitivity
Monitoring, evaluating and learning
Key competencies and skills sets:
Providing thought leadership and strategic direction
Facilitating systemic and organizational mindset change
Creating collaborative and robust learning environments
Building and maintaining networks among diverse stakeholders
Conducting applied research informed by the reflective traditions of participatory and action research approaches to qualitative data collection and analysis
Designing and delivering workshops and trainings
Managing programs and building teams
My education and training includes:
Human Systems Dynamics Institute Associate
CDA’s advanced training in Reflecting on Peace Practice (RPP) methodology for analyzing conflict
Certification in USAID’s Conflict Analysis Framework (CAF 2.0)
Interdisciplinary social science PhD and a Graduate Certificate in conflict studies from Syracuse University.
MA in international studies and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s studies from the University of Oregon.
“Collaboration, learning, and adaptation are the tools we have to survive in a world that is constantly changing. We need to work together across boundaries and disciplines, to learn from each other’s perspectives and experiences, and to adapt our strategies as we gain new insights and information. Only by embracing these principles can we hope to navigate the complex challenges of our time and build a more sustainable and equitable world for all.”