The report presents findings from the final evaluation of the “Madam President” project, which was implemented by the international NGO Search for Common Ground (SFCG) in Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and Tunisia.
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Bert Koenders holds the Kooijmans Chair in Peace, Security and Justice at Leiden University and is Chairman of the Dutch Advisory Council on International Affairs.
Mr Koenders served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands from October 2014 to October 2017. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1997 to 2007 and served as Minister for Development Cooperation from 2007 until 2010. He was the Under Secretary General of the United Nations and served as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Operation in the Ivory Coast (2011-2013), and Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (2013-2014).
Mr Koenders has also served as President of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Parliamentary Assembly and was Founder of the Parliamentary Network on the WorldBank/IMF. He has been a Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University SAIS.
Bernardo has 20 years of experience in the international development sector, where he is an expert on conflict resolution, peacebuilding, governance and support to civil society in fragile and conflict-affected countries. Bernardo is also a monitoring, evaluation and learning expert, who is specialized in using theories of change (and theory-based approaches) to assess the effectiveness and impact of initiatives focused on advocacy and social change. Bernardo has designed, coordinated and led complex assignments across five continents. He is also an experienced analyst, who monitors and regularly comments on peace and conflict developments in the Middle East and North Africa. Bernardo has worked for several international NGOs—including International Alert in the UK, Search for Common Ground in Belgium and Morocco, and the European Centre for Minority Issues in Georgia—and for UN peacekeeping missions in Haiti and Liberia. He holds a BA from Tufts University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington DC.
Bernardo is AP’s co-founder and Head of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning.
Women’s marginalization and the failures of the Libyan Peace Process
Italy’s contribution to peacebuilding: one step forward, two steps back
Women, Peace and Security in the Horn of Africa: a guide to programming
Civil society as the engine for stability and growth in Africa
Peace is still possible in Libya, but only with the involvement of civil society
Women Peace and Security in the Horn of Africa: between rhetoric and reality
Bernardo Venturi has 20 years of experience in research, training, policy work and programme management mainly on peacebuilding, conflict resolution, EU external relations, good governance and international cooperation. He likes to blend theoretical analysis and fieldwork in order to bring practicality to the former and reflection to the latter. Bernardo is also Adjunct Professor at the University of Bologna, an Associate Researcher for the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and lectures in several MA courses and training programmes in different countries. Bernardo obtained his PhD in 2009 from the University of Bologna, where he also held a post-doctoral research fellowship.
Bernardo consulted for several regional and international organizations including the European Commission, EEAS, European Parliament, IGAD, OSCE, the Italian MFA and several international NGOs and platforms.
Bernardo is a frequent media commentator for different Italian media (e.g., Radio Tre, Il Sole 24 Ore, Repubblica, Avvenire, Quotidiano Nazionale, etc.) and international ones (e.g., BBC Radio, Le Soleil, El Confidencial, etc.).
Periods of study and research led him to Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, Moldova State University, the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO), the US Institute for Peace (USIP) and Sussex University. Among his past positions, he was the Director of the Centro Studi Difesa Civile (CSDC) and he also contributed to the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) contributing as a Steering Committee member. Bernardo served as AP’s Director for seven years (Oct. 2015 – June 2023).
Bernardo is AP’s Co-Founder and Head of Research and Policy.
Peacebuilding in Italy: a sector in need of identity
Women, Peace and Security in the Horn of Africa
Youth, Peace and Security: an Agenda for change
Project evaluation: Building peace in Mindanao
Project evaluation: good governance in Africa
Intercultural action in Bologna
Resisting the normalization of violence
Tanzania: when statistics becomes the enemy
Italy’s contribution to peacebuilding: one step forward, two steps back
Local participation and migration: the role of countries of origin
How to promote healthy state-citizens relations in Africa
Preventing violence in a “peaceful country”: the case of Tanzania
- L’inclusione nei processi di pace: promuovere la partecipazione per assicurare risultati sostenibili
- Bernardo Venturi discusses the application of the EU-Italy-Tunisia agreement [Quotidiano Nazionale]
- Reflections from the Bologna Peacebuilding Forum, on the Triple Nexus, Ukraine, and Sudan [Oltremare]
- Director for Agency for Peacebuilding says, ‘Europe needs to listen to civil society’ [DIRE]
Project assessment: Dumisha Amani Zanzibar
Implementing the YPS agenda at the country level
Evaluation report: Inuka!Community-Led Security Approaches to Violent Extremism in Coastal Kenya
Final evaluation: “Madame President” project
Assessment summary: Women peace and security in the Horn of Africa
Celina has more than twenty years of experience in peacebuilding specifically focusing on strengthening youth participation, and on peace and global citizenship education. She has experience as a process and dialogue facilitator, trainer, researcher, evaluator and developer of curriculum and educational materials. She has worked for several local governments, universities, intergovernmental and civil society organisations, mostly based in Europe and Latin America. Celina is also a grant proposals reviewer for the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) Foundation and a Member of the Code of Good Practice Panel of Experts of the Irish Development Education Association. Celina has a PhD in International Relations (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands), a MA in Peace and Conflict Studies (European Peace University, Austria), and a BA in Political Science (National University of Rosario, Argentina). She speaks English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Celina contributed to AP for 5 years (2018-2023) as an Advisor on Youth, Peace and Security.
Celina is AP´s President.
Megan is an Irish citizen and holds a master’s degree in Religion, Conflict and Globalisation from the University of Groningen, Netherlands. There, she refined her research interests in peacebuilding, secularism, sociology of religion and conflict resolution. Prior to that, she studied at Queen’s University Belfast, and as a student volunteered in peacebuilding initiatives, in particular related to the Good Friday Agreement. She is particularly interested in the contributions made by religious actors and civil society organisations to sustainable peace and peacebuilding agreements. Megan has previously worked in events organisation and as a publications assistant with the European University Institute, and has worked in communication roles for research institutes and NGO’s such as Amnesty International Northern Ireland. She also has a background as an activist both in Ireland and Italy.
Megan is AP’s Communication Officer.
Mikhail Silvestro Sustersic, AP’s Director, is a peacebuilding expert with a transdisciplinary background and an holistic approach to the complexities of our world. With expertise in peace and security, conflict management, human rights, gender equality and more, Mikhail is dedicated to fostering inclusivity, equality and meaningful dialogue. He holds a Master’s degree in Modern Philology from the University of Padova, followed by a European Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation (E.Ma) from EIUC and Maastricht University and a Master’s degree in Cultural Diplomacy. Strongly committed to championing youth, women, LGBTI+ and minorities participation in peace and security, he is passionated about preventing and countering violent extremism (P\CVE), transitional justice and supranational criminology. Monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) expert, trainer, facilitator and researcher, Mikhail has made successful contributions to impactful projects and evaluations for esteemed international organizations such as the United Nations, OSCE and ODIHR, Council of Europe, and civil society organizations including Search for Common Ground, USIP, UNOY, Kofi Annan Foundation, and GCERF. But Mikhail’s vision goes beyond conventional approaches. As a LARP (Live-Action Roleplaying) and experience designer with the association Chaos League, he creates immersive scenarios for personal and social transformation, challenging participants to think differently and inspiring profound change. Related to this, Mikhail is also deeply interested in future thinking and foresight design, seeking innovative solutions to address emerging challenges. Mikhail’s commitment extends to his volunteer work as an emergency rescuer with the Italian Red Cross.
Mariachiara is a master’s degree candidate in International Relation – crime, justice, and security curriculum in the University of Bologna. She is passionate about conflict transformation and peacebuilding issues and the Middle East is her main area of interest. She is keen on organizing and planning and have several years of experiences as project manager in associations.
She first interned for Agency for Peacebuilding and she is now collaborating with AP where she is able to deepen her academic interests for peace and conflict studies and her project development skills.
She is active in volunteer work that includes nonformal education activities with children.
Hashim Pondeza has over 10 years of working experience in social, economic and political aspects of Tanzania, with a long professional experience in Zanzibar. He is a founder of a youth championing non-profit organization named Center for Youth Dialogue (CYD). Among other assignments, Hashim worked as a Zanzibar Coordinator for a UNDP project and consulted for UNODC’s CVE project in East Africa. Hashim holds a master’s degree in Public Administration obtained from the Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Ohio, USA.
Ylenia has more than 10 years of experience in research, project management and monitoring and evaluation, particularly in the areas of migration, international protection, and global citizenship education. She has worked for academic institutions and international organisations in Europe, North and West Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and Southeast Asia. As a consultant, she has been conducting assignments, mainly in the field of monitoring, evaluation and learning, for several development cooperation actors. She was a postdoctoral research associate at the “Borderlands” project hosted by the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute. Ylenia holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Law from the Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies, an MA in International Relations from the University of Florence and BA in International and Diplomatic Sciences from the University of Genoa.
Alessandro is a peacebuilding practitioner with over 10 years of experience. He has worked with the United Nations and with leading peacebuilding agencies such as Search For Common Ground and International Alert, where he managed large and complex projects, mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Alessandro’s focuses include research, training and facilitation in conflict analysis, as well as conflict sensitivity and “Do No Harm” methodologies. His areas of interests include conflict dynamics over access to services and resources, with a specific focus on conflicts between refugees and host populations and conflicts between sedentary and nomadic populations in Central and Western Africa. Alessandro holds a University Degree in Political Sciences from the University of Florence, an MA in Human Rights and Conflict Management from the University of Sant’Anna in Pisa, and a Degree in Research Methods from the University of Bradford (UK).
Anthony is a social science researcher and practitioner with more than 10 years of experience in the spheres of security, terrorism, violent extremism and radicalization, peacebuilding and governance. Anthony has worked as a consultant on research, monitoring and evaluation in the context of various projects in East and Central Africa, and was previously a law enforcement officer for the Tanzanian government. Anthony has significant experience working at the local, national, and regional levels, designing and conducting complex research assignments. An expert on East Africa’s security and political economies, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Dar-es-Salaam, and a master’s degree and a Post Graduate Certificate in Strategic Security from The George Washington University. He is currently in his final semester for a Post Graduate Certificate in Criminal and Intelligence Analysis at American Military University. Anthony is AP’s Senior Advisor on research, including monitoring and evaluation.
Valentina is a researcher affiliated with the Interdisciplinary Centre Science for Peace, in Pisa, a visiting professor at the University of Pisa and an Invited Professor at Dauphine University in Paris. She is the recipient of a research fellowship from the Veronesi Foundation, for 2015-2016, and a Visiting Fellowship at Derby University, in the UK; she also collaborates closely with the Faculty of Social and International Studies at Bradford University, also in the UK. In 2013-2014, Valentina was a Fulbright Research Scholar at Arizona State University. She regularly consults with national and international agencies on issues of terrorism, organized crime, migration and foreign policy. Her interests focus on foreign and security policies, peacebuilding, terrorism and counter-terrorism, and on strategic communication.
Stefano has a PhD in international law at Middlesex University in London. He researches and lectures on the role of international tribunals in conflict resolution and the relation between international justice and peace and security. He has experience in the field of human rights and conflict transformation in the NGO sector, and has worked in the Middle East, South Caucasus, Balkans, North Africa and Sudan. He collaborates with public institutions in the management of European funds, is a lawyer at the bar of Madrid and a consultant for different law firms. Stefano has been living and working in Italy, Switzerland, the UK and Spain. He holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Florence, an LLM from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, an MPhil from Middlesex University. He co-founded and co-ordinates An International Law Blog, a platform that promote discussions on issues related to international, transnational and European law among lawyers and scholars.
Donata Garrasi is a political scientist with 25 years’ experience leading research, policy, and programmatic initiatives on peace, security, and conflict related issues.
Between 2018-2021 Ms Garrasi served as Director of Political Affairs for the United Nations for which she led sensitive political engagements and peace initiatives in Africa’s Great Lakes sub-region. She previously held senior positions with the World Bank, the OECD, the UK Government, and consulting firms for which she developed and managed successful multi-million US$ engagements in support to peacebuilding, political transitions, and stabilisation operations in West, Central Southern and East Africa, the Middle East, Central and South-East Asia, and globally.
Ms Garrasi has collaborated extensively with financial institutions and multinational companies on issues related to natural resources management and investments in high risk and transitional contexts, contributing to enhancing due diligence processes and multi-stakeholders’ processes, and to preventing and addressing reputational, operational, and financial risks associated with terrorism financing, conflict minerals, and poor governance and security environments.
Ms Garrasi developed methodologies to conduct peace and conflict analysis, recovery and peacebuilding assessments, and conflict sensitive screening which are currently used by leading international and regional organisations. She has developed and delivered trainings on crisis management, political economy analysis in crisis affected situations, conflict prevention, and negotiation for senior-level political and development officials of the European Union, the World Bank, the UK Government, ECOWAS, and private sector partners.
A trained mediator, Ms Garrasi has been directly involved in negotiations in national and sub-national crisis contexts.
Ms Garrasi is an Italian national. She holds a MA in International relations from the University of Florence, Faculty of Political Science, and has completed executive programmes including with Yale School of Management and Harvard Kennedy School. She speaks English, French, and Spanish.
Claudio Pezzi is a lawyer admitted to the Bologna Bar, managing partner of the law firm Pezzi & Associati based in Bologna, with an extensive experience in international law of commerce and private international law. Over the past years Claudio has developed a robust experience on entertainment Law and IP Rights, most notably in in the field of Copyright Law dealing with international clients in the area of digital copyright infringement and licensing of photographs, movies, music and videos.
In his practice Claudio dealt with international human rights cases and is a member of the International and human rights committee of the Bologna bar.
Claudio has a Master of Laws (LLM) in American Law and International Legal Practice from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, U.S.A.
He is a member of the International Committee of the Bologna Bar Association and founder and president of ILMA – International Law Meeting Association, a local association promoting the study of International Law.
As a member of Rotary International, over the past 10 years he has promoted, sponsored, introduced and obtained from the Rotary Foundation more than 15 post-graduate scholarships in the field of Peacebuilding.
Senior European Programme Manager, Ariadne – European Funders for Social Change and Human Rights Based in Brussels, Debora identifies trends and opportunities, promotes membership, and liaises with other funders’ networks. Debora has 15 years’ experience of professional and volunteer activities for foundations, NGOs and international organisations. Before joining Ariadne, she worked for a few years as an independent consultant. Previously, she managed the anti-discrimination work of the Open Society Initiative for Europe (OSIFE) focusing on Western Europe for five years. From 2008 to 2011, she managed the European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM), a grant-making initiative of NEF. Formerly, she worked for UNESCO in Cuba and Mexico and for Handicap International Belgium. She studied international relations, political sciences, culture and development studies, in Italy (Padua), France (Sciences-Po Paris), and Belgium (University of Leuven).
Tom Dewar is now affiliated with Nurture Development as a Senior Associate, as well as being an Emeritus faculty member with the Asset Based Community Development Institute. He was previously Co-Director of the Aspen Institute’s Roundtable on Community Change. He now lives in Bologna, Italy where he taught international and community development through the School for Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University (2001-2007), in Bologna.
From 1998-2001, he was director of Evaluation for the MacArthur Foundation in Chicago – his hometown. He continues to serve as a Senior Advisor to MacArthur in support of their Safety and Justice Initiative, a ten-year commitment to change the way jails are used (and mis-used) in the US. Prior to that he was Senior Project Associate at Rainbow Research in Minneapolis (1991-1997); where he worked with a variety of community-driven initiatives, non-profit organizations and community foundations across the U.S. to improve their effectiveness and impact. Before Rainbow, he was a long=time faculty member of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, where he taught and conducted action research (1974-1990).
His teaching, research, writing and public speaking have addressed a variety of topics, including especially the key challenges in community development, role of mutual aid and informal networks in community building, the social and economic organization of neighborhoods, achieving racial equity, and the dangers of an over-reliance on professional service delivery systems. He has led numerous evaluations that have focused on these topics, as well as on efforts to re-integrate formerly institutionalized (and other labeled) people into local communities, reform policy and practice in state level juvenile justice systems, provide employment and income for lower skilled and less experienced workers, improve the integration of school and work, carry out peacemaking and conflict mediation, strengthen sustainable agriculture, and promote strong and effective community organizing..
Ambassador Lamberto Zannier is a High-Level Expert at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and has occupied this position since September 2020. He served as the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities from July 2017 until July 2020. Previously, he was OSCE Secretary General for two consecutive three-year terms, from 1 July 2011 until 30 June 2017. Other senior positions include UN Special Representative for Kosovo and Head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) from 2008 to 2011, with rank of UN Under-Secretary-General, Director of the Conflict Prevention Centre of the OSCE (2002-2006), Chairperson of the negotiations on the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (1998-1999) and Head of Disarmament, Arms Control and Cooperative Security at NATO (1991-1997). Between 2006 and 2008 he served as Coordinator for CFSP and ESDP (now CSDP) in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dealing inter alia with EU foreign policy issues and with Italy’s participation in EU operations, both civilian and military.
Zannier joined the Italian Foreign Ministry as a career diplomat in 1978 and also served in Abu Dhabi, Vienna and The Hague, mainly specializing in multilateral and security affairs. From 1976 to 1977 he worked at the Legal Office of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome on issues related to international river basins and the shared use of internal waters.
Amb. Zannier is author of several publications on international affairs, conflict prevention and crisis management issues. Visiting Professor, University of Trento; member of Advisory Board, Italian Agency for Peacebuilding; former Director for Euro-Mediterranean Diplomacy and Intercultural Affairs, IFIMES Institute of research studies; former President of the Istituto per la Ricerca sul Negoziato, University of Gorizia.
He holds a Doctorate in Law, an advanced degree in international relations from Societa’ Italiana per le Organizzazioni Internazionali in Rome and an honorary doctorate in International and Diplomatic Sciences (2016) from the University of Trieste, Italy.
Ivan Vejvoda is a Permanent Fellow and Director Europe’s Futures project at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
From 2010 – 2017 he was Senior Vice President at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS) in Washington D.C. From 2003-2010 he was in Belgrade the Executive Director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of GMFUS supporting democratic initiatives and civil society. Vejvoda came to GMF in 2003 from distinguished service in the Serbian government as senior advisor on foreign policy and European integration to Prime Minister Zoran Djindjić. He was executive director of the Belgrade-based Fund for an Open Society from 1998 to 2002. During the mid-1990s, Mr. Vejvoda held various academic posts in the United Kingdom (University of Sussex) the US (Macalester and Smith Colleges). Ivan Vejvoda was involved in the democratic opposition movement in Yugoslavia through the 1980s and 1990s. A political scientist and political theorist he has published extensively on: democracy, totalitarianism, the French Revolution, comparative European politics, Balkans.
He was awarded the French National Order of Merit in the rank of Officer (2006) and the Italian Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity rank of commander (2007).
Huma is an affiliated senior researcher at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (KU Leuven) and an independent research consultant with national and international human rights and development organizations, including the Afghansitan Independent Human Rights Commission, GIZ, ECHO (European Commission), Alert International and other institutions. Her research area is human rights (with focus on women’s rights and Housing, Land and Property rights) and transitional justice with extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan. Previously she has worked with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Kabul as well as human rights and women’s rights organizations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and internationally. She has a PhD in criminology (KU Leuven), MA in human rights (LSE) and BA in Political Science (UMBC). She is the recipient of numerous academic awards, including the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation scholarship, and is a published author in a number of peer reviewed international academic journals.
Economist and expert in migration and public health: her research interests are mainly concentrated on the impact of mobility and migration on European welfare and health systems. She also works on the organization of reception systems and integration of migrants in Europe. She is currently working as researcher at Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences at University of Siena as a member of the Inequality Lab (Laboratorio delle Diseguaglianze).
For seven years she has worked at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS) of the European University Institute (EUI) as Research Fellow and Project Coordinator. She has also collected working experience with international organizations, other research centres and NGOs on policy analysis in Belgium, Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Netherlands, Serbia and Spain. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics by the University of Siena (Italy), a M.Sc. degree in Development Economics from the University of Florence (Italy) and a B.Sc. degree in Law and Economics from the University of Bologna (Italy). She is an active contributor and a peer reviewer for several journals and she has been invited as speaker and guest lecturer at different international conferences and universities.
Emiliano Alessandri is AP’s Senior Advisor on International Partnerships and Global Outreach. He brings significant conflict-cycle expertise in key regions, from the Middle and North Africa (MENA) to Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Emiliano’s entire career has focused on conflict management and conflict resolution, drawing on a 15-year plus track record of working at the cusp of research and policy in the field of international security. He is a non-resident scholar with the Middle East Institute of Washington and a non-resident senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund. He is also the senior officer for the Mediterranean and MENA regions for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).