Expert Network Expert of the Month – August 2017 Contributor

Gaudence Nyirabikali is a freelance consultant with expertise in peacebuilding, governance and international development. Her main interests include evidence-based analyses of state-society relations; root causes of conflict and their transformation; institutional development in conflict-affected contexts and prospects for sustainable peace and development.

She was previously a senior consultant at the African Development Imperative. Prior to that, she was a senior researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) where she worked within the Mali Peacebuilding and Civil Society project. She has an academic and field-based research experience in peacebuilding processes and post-conflict reconstruction of state and society, drawing particularly on research and fieldwork in Angola, Mali, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. Her research interests include the social and political dynamics within African post-colonial states, state-society relations and the quality of governance structures in relation to fostering political stability, sustainable peace and human security. Some of the questions guiding her research relate to how different groups of a society can be inclusively represented in political structures and how people’s needs and aspirations can be reflected in policies and followed on through development processes. This extends into how effective collaboration between local stakeholders, national authorities and international actors can be enhanced in order to sustain peace, security and development, and the role of civil society in those processes.

Her academic and professional affiliations include the European International Studies Association (EISA); the World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research (WINIR); the UNESCO Centre (Chair in Education for Pluralism, Human Rights and Democracy, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, UK); the Centre for Applied Ethics, Linköping University (research collaboration and guest lecturer); the Centre for Sustainable Development, Uppsala University; and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA).

Articles Authored

Inclusive peacebuilding and statebuilding in emerging and multicultural states (1 August 2017) - A large proportion of currently conflict-affected settings is comprised of post-colonial states which, in view of their recent formation and the diversity of the populations within their borders, are also characterised as emerging and multicultural states. In these settings, marginalisation based on ethnic and/or regional identity in the political and socio-economic processes figure prominently among the causes of violent conflict.