- Alison Blake - After an initial career
as an archaeologist, Alison has worked on conflict issues for
most of her 20 years in the civil service. Following a period in the Ministry
of Defence, and a posting to NATO during the IFOR/SFOR and Kosovo
campaigns, she has worked on Balkans issues in the Foreign Office,
covered US policy, Russia, OSCE and conflict resolution during a posting
to Washington in 2001-5. Alison headed the Cabinet Office's
Foreign Policy team for two years before taking up her current post
as Head of Conflict Group in the FCO in September 2007.
- Kai Brand-Jacobsen is Director of the Peace
Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania (PATRIR) and the
Institute's Peace Support Unit. With extensive experience in Latin
America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South Eastern Europe, Kai has
been invited to more than 48 countries as a trainer and mediator. He
specializes in the design and development of peace processes and
mediation, and is an expert advisor to governments, national and
international organisations and UN agencies. Since 2001 Kai has focused
extensively on the development of policies and infrastructure to enable
effective peacebuilding, violence prevention and post-war recovery.
- Jane Corbin was for
many years the senior correspondent for Panorama, the BBC's flagship
current affairs programme. She has covered the world's major conflicts for
more than two decades and is known internationally as a commentator on the
Middle East and terrorism. Jane is often invited to contribute in a number
of high level policy arenas, and has briefed think-tanks, Parliamentary
committees and the British government. She has excellent contacts
all over the world at the highest government levels, with NGOs and at
grass-roots level, and is the author of two books - Gaza First: an
insider account of the Oslo process and The Base: al-Qaeda and the
changing face of global terror. Jane is four times winner of the Royal
Television Society Award and an Emmy nominee.
- Dr Scilla Elworthy founded the Oxford
Research Group in 1982 to develop effective dialogue between nuclear
weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics. In 2003 she
founded Peace Direct, a charity that works to fund and promote
peace-builders in conflict areas all over the world, and since 2005 she
has been an adviser to The Elders initiative, assisting Nelson Mandela,
Graca Machel and Desmond Tutu to convene a group of leaders to contribute
their wisdom, independent leadership and integrity to tackling some of the
world's toughest problems. In 2007 she was appointed a member of the
World Future Council and also of the International Panel on Conflict
Prevention and Global Security. Scilla has been nominated three
times for the Nobel Peace Prize and was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize in
2003.
- Simon Fisher has worked in many countries
as adviser, facilitator, trainer and mediator with local and international
agencies, with governments and at the UN. In 1991 he founded and became
first director of Responding to Conflict, since when his priority has been
to help develop and sustain active networks of committed peace workers at
global and regional levels. Among his books are: Working with Conflict:
skills and strategies for action, and Spirited Living: waging
conflict, building peace. His current pre-occupation is to challenge
the thinking amongst policy makers by getting the lessons from the
conflict transformation field into their hands and minds.
- Judith Large is Honorary Fellow at
the Richardson Institute for Peace and Conflict Research (Lancaster
University) and a practitioner currently working with UNDP on governance
and conflict prevention issues. Previously she was based at CMI under
Martti Ahtisaari, following three years at International IDEA in
Stockholm. Her interests are conflict settlement and post-war
recovery, most recently in Nepal and Aceh, Indonesia.
- Professor Karl Mackie is Chief Executive of
CEDR - the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution - and is
internationally acknowledged as one of the leading practitioners in
mediation; he has been described in The Lawyer magazine as one of
the top 100 most influential lawyers in the UK. Karl has successfully
mediated and facilitated a rich variety of cases with parties from over 20
different countries, including cases regarded as 'impossible' to
settle. A barrister and psychologist by training, Karl has been a
leading academic and a partner in a business strategy consultancy before
helping found CEDR. The author of several books on mediation and
legal skills, he has been awarded an Honorary Professorship from the
University of Birmingham and is Visiting Professor of ADR at the
University of Westminster.
- Moazzam Malik is Head of the Conflict,
Humanitarian and Security Department (CHASE) at the Department for
International Development, where he is Deputy Director. During his
time at DfID he has previously been Principal Private Secretary to Secretary of
State, Head
of the Iraq Humanitarian Response Department, the Pakistan Programme
Manager and Head of the Trade Policy and Promotion Team in International
Economic Policy Department. He trained originally as an economist
and has also worked for the National Development Finance Corporation
in Pakistan, as an adviser to the Central Bank of Uganda, and as a
consultant to the African Development Bank and European Commission.
- Jango Sarosh is a recent President of
Religions for Peace Europe, the European arm of the world's largest and
most representative multi-religious organization dedicated to peace (the Archbishop of
Canterbury is currently Co-President). A Zoroastrian
born in India, Jango came to the UK by car in 1952. He served in the
Royal Air Force, then worked in the civil aviation industry before starting
his own business in 1968. He is a founder and executive member of the
European Religious Leaders Council, was an executive member of the
Inter-Faith Network of the UK from 1994 to 2006, and currently holds
executive and trustee positions in several faith-related bodies and
charities.
- Sir Rupert Smith retired
from the British Army in 2002. His last appointment was Deputy Supreme
Commander Allied Powers Europe, 1998-2001, covering NATO's Balkan
operations, including the Kosovo bombing, and the development of the
European Defence and Security Identity. Prior to that he was the General
Officer Commanding in Northern Ireland, 1996-1998; Commander UNPROFOR in
Sarajevo, 1995; the Assistant Chief of Defence Staff for Operations,
1992-1994; and General Officer Commanding 1 (UK) Armoured Division,
1990-1992, including the Gulf War. He enlisted in 1962 and was
commissioned into The Parachute Regiment in 1964. He has served in
East and South Africa, Arabia, the Caribbean, Europe, and Malaysia.
He is an Honorary Doctor of Surrey University and a Fellow of the Royal
Geographic Society. His book The Utility of Force was
published in September 2005.
- Dr Steward Wood is Senior Policy
Adviser to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, covering foreign
policy (Europe, USA and Latin America); and Culture, Media and Sport
issues. He has worked as a special adviser to Gordon Brown since
2001, serving for six years on the Treasury's Council of Economic
Advisers. He studied as an undergraduate at Oxford University and
did a PhD at Harvard University. Since 1996 he has been Fellow in
Politics at Magdalen College, Oxford. His academic research focused
on economic and social welfare policy in Europe and North America since
1945, as well as various issues in public policy in the UK. He was
co-founder and co-director of Nexus, a think-tank set up in 1996 to link
academics, policy experts and commentators with policy thinking inside the
Labour Party.
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The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues was officially registered on 21 December 2006.
