In Liberia, security is everybody’s business

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According to the FBA’s definition, security sector reform (SSR) is a concept that frames technical reforms within a political process.

I think back two weeks to when I was in Liberia, reciting the for me now very familiar but abstract above sentence. The participants in the room, 16 program officers from the Liberian National Security Council Secretariat, were repeating this sentence with me in unison.

For the past four days, we had tried to unpack this sentence in ... Read entire post »

Achieving gender equality in UN peacekeeping – a lot like building new doors

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When you visualise a door, what do you see?

To me, the image of a closed door has similarities to gender equality and UN peacekeeping. Let me explain.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres aims to achieve gender equality throughout the UN system by 2028. He is actively prioritising to change the inverse relationship across the UN system between seniority and women’s representation – the higher the grade, the larger the gap in gender parity. Particular attention is directed towards ... Read entire post »

Peace and life – or nabad iyo nolol in Somali

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Acute vertigo kicked in as I stepped off the helicopter and my feet touched solid ground for the first time after six days at sea, and I realized that my job as Political Adviser to the EU Capacity Building Mission in Somalia (EUCAP Somalia) was beyond that of a normal desk job.

The helicopter had departed from an Italian warship off the coast of Mogadishu where I had spent the better part of a week sailing up ... Read entire post »