On Thursday, July 28th at 10:00am ET, join AfP for a conversation exploring how the international community can shape a cooperative response to the central challenges and threats from non-state armed groups around the world. Building off of the recent Atlantic Council publication, Toward a Framework for Transatlantic Cooperation on Non-State Armed Groups, this event will discuss a broad framework outlining how donors, governments, civil society, and researchers can respond to threats from non-state armed groups in a way conducive to sustainable peace and security. Speakers will identify criteria deciding which kinds of groups can be engaged with, analyze burden-sharing through sharing of common objectives among the international community, and elaborate through case studies from various geographic regions such as Latin America, the Sahel, and the Middle East. This event is now completely virtual and will feature AfP’s Liz Hume, the International Republican Institute’s Patrick Quirk, Chemonics International’s Ahmed Al Khameri, and ACLED’s Prof. Clionadh Raleigh.

Speaker Bios:

Patrick Quirk, PhD, Senior Director, Strategy, Research, and the Center for Global Impact, International Republican Institute

Patrick Quirk, PhD serves as Senior Director for Strategy, Research, and the Center for Global Impact at IRI. In this role, Dr. Quirk manages the 50-person team of thematic experts, researchers, and global project staff who help IRI monitor and develop innovative approaches to address global challenges to democracy. As Senior Director, Quirk oversees IRI’s institutional approaches to its priority technical areas, from countering foreign authoritarian influence and combatting kleptocracy, to stabilizing fragile states; and directs IRI’s institutional efforts on monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL). Concurrent to serving at IRI, Dr. Quirk is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, and Co-chair of the Democracy working group of the Society for International Development (SID). From 2019-2021, he was a Nonresident Fellow in the Foreign Policy Program of the Brookings Institution.

Ahmed Al Khameri, Program Management Director, United Kingdom Division, Chemonics International

Ahmed Al Khameri is a project manager for the FCDO-funded Yemen Peacebuilding Program, a four-year program to resolve local conflict and enhance social cohesion. Mr. Al Khameri also served as a project manager for the FCDO’s Syria Education Program, Manahel. Prior to joining Chemonics, he spent seven years serving in governance advisory roles to DFID with an emphasis on Yemen conflict dynamics. Most recently, he was the governance advisor under the DFID Yemen team leading DFID’s stabilization and governance efforts. Mr. Al Khameri holds a Master’s in International Politics from City University London and is a fluent Arabic speaker.

Clionadh Raleigh, Executive Director, ACLED and Professor of Political Geography and Conflict, University of Sussex

Clionadh Raleigh is a professor of political geography and conflict at the University of Sussex and the executive director of the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).  Her research concentrates on the dynamics of conflict and violence, African political environments, and elite networks. She has received two European Research Council Awards (an ERC starter in 2011 and ERC consolidator in 2016) to pursue this research. Raleigh founded ACLED in 2005 as part of her PhD work, and it is now an independent NGO with 200 staff collecting and analyzing information on political violence and demonstrations across the globe.

Liz Hume, Executive Director, Alliance for Peacebuilding

Elizabeth (Liz) Hume is the Executive Director at the Alliance for Peacebuilding. She is a conflict expert and has more than 20 years of experience in senior leadership positions in bilateral, multilateral institutions and NGOs.  She has extensive experience in policy and advocacy and overseeing sizeable and complex peacebuilding programs in conflict-affected and fragile states in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa.  From 1997-2001, Liz was seconded by the US Department of State to the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo as the Chief Legal Counsel and Head of the Election Commission Secretariats. In these positions, she was responsible for developing the legal framework and policies in support of the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords and UN Resolution 1244. After 9/11, Liz worked for the International Rescue Committee in Pakistan and Afghanistan where she established and managed the Protection Department for Afghan refugees and returning IDPs.