Expert Network Expert of the Month – January 2018 Contributor

Walt Kilroy is Associate Director of the Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction (IICRR) in Dublin City University (DCU). His research and teaching focuses on conflict, peacebuilding, and development, and in particular the interactions between these processes. He is interested in the way societies deal with the aftermath of armed conflict, and the social and political reconstruction which is part of the peacebuilding process.

Walt’s research includes the reintegration programmes for ex-combatants after the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia, which was important for the social, economic and political recovery of those societies. His book, Reintegration of Ex-combatants after Conflict: Participatory Approaches in Sierra Leone and Liberia, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015. His PhD on this topic, which involved in depth research with the ex-combatants themselves and the communities they settled in, was awarded the Basil Chubb Prize by the Political Studies Association of Ireland for the best thesis in political science in Ireland (2012).

Walt previously worked for 16 years as a journalist, mainly in television and radio, including covering the conflict in person in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, and Afghanistan. He was Deputy Foreign Editor at RTE (Irish public television), and received a number of journalism awards. He later worked for several years in East Africa on conflict and peacebuilding for the development agency Trócaire.

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Articles Authored

South Sudan: Where civilian protection meets state sovereignty (1 January 2018) - There is no shortage of challenges to focus on for 2018 when it comes to conflict, peacebuilding, and humanitarian crises. However, one which shouldn’t be forgotten (assuming it ever received much attention) is the war in South Sudan. South Sudan’s conflict highlights the dilemmas surrounding the protection of civilians.

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