Ru’yat al-Shabab is a multi-phase project that strengthens youth leadership, civic engagement, and institutional trust across Iraq. The project empowers young women and men to become agents of peace and support their dialogue with communities, civil society, and local institutions. By investing in a new generation of leaders and mentors, Ru’yat al-Shabab promotes inclusive governance and sustainable peace, while helping prevent the marginalisation and radicalisation of youth.
Ru’yat al-Shabab projects aims at strengthening the capacity of Iraqi youth to play a leading role in establishing constructive dialogue between communities and institutions, countering extremism and promoting the Youth, Peace, and Security agenda in Iraq. .
2024 – 2026
Giulia Ferraro
Bernardo Monzani
Mariachiara Giaccai
Ru’yat al-Shabab is a comprehensive, multi-phase initiative designed to strengthen youth leadership, civic engagement, and institutional trust throughout Iraq. The project focuses on empowering young women and men to become active agents of peace, fostering dialogue and collaboration between communities, civil society, and local institutions. By investing in this new generation of leaders and mentors, Ru’yat al-Shabab seeks to promote inclusive governance, sustainable peace, and to actively prevent the marginalisation and radicalisation of youth.
Ru’yat al-Shabab applies an experiential learning and participatory approach, combining theory and practice through workshops, online modules, and local micro-projects. The initiative draws on the UN Youth, Peace and Security Agenda (UNSCR 2250) and promotes youth-led action to support the Iraqi National Action Plan implementation.
Originally from Palermo, Sara is a young peacebuilding professional with a strong international background and a Master’s degree cum laude in International Relations from the University of Bologna, which builds upon a Bachelor’s degree in International and
Diplomatic Affairs from the same institution. Her studies and personal trajectory have been
shaped by multiple academic experiences abroad, including the Netherlands, Portugal, South
Korea, and Spain.
Her professional and academic experience includes active involvement in student governance
and internationalisation, serving as both a Student Representative and a Tutor for Internationalisation at the University of Bologna.
She first joined the Agency for Peacebuilding as a Project Intern, contributing to the EU-funded BRIDGES project. This experience informed her experimental master’s thesis, which examined AP’s approach in Somalia within the broader framework of transitional justice and the legacies of Italian colonialism.
Her thematic interests include peacebuilding and conflict transformation; the role and impact of civil society; transitional justice, reparations, and rule of law; post-colonial legacies—particularly those tied to Italian colonialism; Italian and EU development cooperation; and regional security dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa. Sara now returns to AP as a Young Associate, contributing to youth engagement, intergenerational dialogue, and peacebuilding research..
Fleur is a human rights lawyer who moved into peacebuilding 20 years ago. Fleur’s peacebuilding practice focuses on reconciliation dialogue (e.g. the Liberian Tribal Leaders’ Reconciliation Forum), community safety and social peace (e.g. Libyan Social Peace Partnerships, and Darfur Communities Peace and Stability in Sudan), creating architectures that support confidence building and peace negotiations (e.g. Confidence building Early Response Mechanism in Georgia and Support to Syrian Negotiations Commission). Fleur is an experienced trainer and teacher, building capacity for conflict analysis, peace initiative planning, and monitoring peace impacts. Fleur has also worked extensively on conflict sensitivity support to governments and international aid agencies, and private companies championing new and practicable tools to help agencies understand trade-offs and dilemmas in their programming.
Fleur holds an MA in International Relations as well as degrees in Law and Science (Psychology).
Evelyn is an Associate Researcher at the Berghof Foundation, independent consultant and peacebuilding practitioner with a focus on community-based approaches and participatory methods. She has over 10 years of research experience on peacebuilding and conflict transformation with field experience in Aceh, Burundi, Colombia, Mindanao, Myanmar, Nepal, Sierra Leone and Uganda. She specialises in gender and conflict, participatory and inclusive processes and creative methods, especially participatory filmmaking. She has co-produced two documentaries with female ex-combatants, exploring their lived realities after war. Her current research investigates the gender-climate-conflict nexus. She also provides policy advice, analysis, training, facilitation and monitoring and evaluation with a focus on impact.
She holds a PhD in International Relations from the LSE, an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford and a BA in Political Science and Public Law from the University of Mannheim. Evelyn was an editor of Millennium: Journal of International Studies, a co-investigator of the Gender, Justice and Security Hub based at the LSE Centre for WPS, and a visiting researcher at the National University of Singapore.
Giulia has an international legal background with field and headquarters-level experience in the peace and security sectors across four continents. Her expertise spans operational management and advocacy. She is also an active member of various networks in peace, security, and international cooperation.
Giulia holds a Master of Laws from the University of Melbourne and an Integrated Master’s Degree from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy. She also studied law in the UK and Lithuania and completed executive-level training in peacebuilding in Switzerland. Giulia is AP’s Project Manager.
Daniela Castagno is an economist by background and an intersectional feminism enthusiast, with almost 20 years of international experience in European and Middle Eastern countries, where she worked with UNDESA, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the European Commission before joining the philanthropic world. She has extensive practice in both international cooperation and philanthropy, facilitating the design and implementation of collaboration and funding schemes, and supporting social and economic transformation through civil society organisations. Currently, she works as an International Program Manager at the Kering Foundation, where she leads the Foundation’s partnerships with Italian, Mexican and Korean local organizations supporting women survivors and implementing prevention and cultural change activities. Graduated from Turin University, Ms Castagno holds a MSc in Development Studies from SOAS – University of London. She was a Senior Fellow at the Centre on Philanthropy and Civil Society at the City University of New York.
Gianluca has more than 20 years of experience in international cooperation. He has held roles as project manager and country representative, focusing primarily on food security, disaster prevention, and emergency response in conflict areas, especially in South America, Middle East and Africa. In recent years, he has specialized in financial management and administration, supporting different organizations in developing workflows and operational procedures aimed at enhance efficiency and transparency in resource allocation and financial management.
Hodan has over 15 years of experieence in the areas of peacebuilding, good governance, gender equality and women’s rights and empowerment in a different environment ranging from conflict, post conflict to peace and stability. Hodan worked with a number of development Institutions in East Africa countries and worked as a consultant on research and evaluation in the region. She has a wealth of experience in advocating for gender equality policies, advancing women’s interests and capacities, and is committed in connecting women leaders both at grassroot and policy levels to achieve women’s rights and enhance their involvement and meaningful participation in political and peacebuilding processes in the region. She holds Master’s Degree in Sociology and community development obtained from Agra University, India.
Dr. Kuyang Harriet Logo Mulukwat taught international law, international human rights law, women and child law at the University of Juba. Kuyang works on democratic governance, access to justice and the rule of law issues, with extensive experience in evaluating UN interventions. Prior to becoming an academic and consultant, Kuyang served with the United Nations Development Programme in the capacities of rule of law analyst, programme analyst for the rule of law cluster and access to justice specialist in Sudan, South Sudan and Timor Leste. Kuyang has published 4 book chapters and peer reviewed journal articles on knowledge production and transitional justice, international humanitarian law, customary law and gender issues. Dr. Kuyang was fellow of the Data and Displacement Project, University of Warwick and was a member of the Expert Working Group of the Africa – China – Europe on promoting dialogue and cooperation to prevent the diversion of arms and ammunition in Africa. She is currently a fellow of the Rift Valley Institute and is a gender lead for the Peacebuilding Opportunities Fund2.
Shadi is a peacebuilder, futurist, researcher and practitioner with a decade of multidisciplinary experience. While most of her experience comes as a result of her active role with international NGOs and youth networks, she has worked with United Nations agencies in Iran and at HQ. She has founded her own young women-led peacebuilding initiative in Iran, PeaceMentors. She was formerly the leading editor of the Journal of Youth, Peace and Security and the MENA Regional Coordinator of the United Network of Young Peacebuilders. Shadi’s research focuses on intergenerational leadership in peace and security at the nexus of the Youth, Peace and Security and Women, Peace and Security agendas. She uses foresight and futures thinking as well as immersive experiences as innovative methodologies and approaches to conducting research and change-making in international development.
Her previous roles have enhanced her expertise in monitoring and evaluation, project cycle management and capacity development. She is a skilled facilitator, an enthusiastic community builder and a qualitative researcher. Shadi holds a BA and MA in English Literature (minor in Postcolonial studies) from Allameh Tabataba’i University, a double joint MA in International Development (minor in Migration and Mediation) from the Ca Foscari University of Venice and Paul Valery Montpellier 3 University. Currently, she is an associate research fellow at Alfred Deakin Institute and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. Shadi is a Kroc IPJ Women PeaceMaker Fellow, a UNAOC Young Peacebuilder Fellow and a One Young World EU Commission Peace Ambassador. She speaks 5 languages and has conducted research with and on youth in Tunisia, Canada, Italy, Iran, Burundi, Uganda, the DRC and Australia.
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.
Nadia Paleari is a Communication Strategist and Climate Policy Advisor with a background in International Relations and European Studies, as well as a Master’s degree in Public Diplomacy.
Her expertise in stakeholder engagement and youth involvement in sustainable development led to her appointment by the European Commission as a European Climate Pact Ambassador.
In this role, she advocates for climate action and promotes sustainable development among young people.
Additionally, she serves as a recognized observer NGO by UNFCCC, actively participating in international climate negotiations, including COP conferences.
Nadia is AP’s Communication Officer.
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.
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).
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.
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..
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).
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.
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).
