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Staffs & Fellows

Founding Director

Dr. Mohamed Husein Gaas

 Dr Mohamed Husein Gaas is the founding Director of the Raad Peace Research Institute and a Research Associate at the Conflict Research Program (CRP) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He holds a PhD in Development Studies from the Norwegian University and has over 17 years of work experience from research, teaching, management, development aid and advisory positions at various international institutions and organisations, including the United Nations in Somalia. His most recent research has focused on governance (including rebel and non-state governance), Human security, peacebuilding, negotiating with insurgency groups (including Alshabaab), climate security, and EU and US foreign policy engagement in the Horn of Africa region. His works have been published in leading Journals and global policy platforms such as the International Security Programme at Harvard University. Moreover, Mohamed has been an invited speaker at several international and regional workshops and conferences, such as the African Mediators Retreat (Oslo Forum), C/PVE in the Horn of Africa (NATO Headquarters), Somalia diaspora and state building (Wilton Park), Diaspora Media and conflicts (Oxford University), and the Security Forum (Norwegian Institute for International Affairs).

Deputy Director

Prof. Yahya Ibrahim

Professor Yahya Ibrahim is the Deputy Director of Raad Peace Research Institute. He is the most prominent economists in Somalia and has been extensively used as a consultant by DFID, USAID, World Bank and IMF, UNDP, and the Transitional Federal of Somalia. He has also been the Dean of the Department of Economics of Mogadishu University, and worked in various research, and advisory positions including advising the Somalia’s President (2012- 2017) and serving as a briefing expert to the UN Security Council on Somalia.

Research Director

Prof. Dr. Abdulkadir Osman

Prof. Dr. Abdulkadir Osman Farah is a Research Director at Raad Peace Research Institute. He  teaches and researches at Aalborg University on Migration, Development, Transnational Encounters and Connections, Transnational NGOs, New- regionalism and Transnational State Formation. He serves as an associate editor of Somali Studies Journal as well as the editorial review boards of a number of journals focusing on political development and political sociology in the African context. His latest books include: “Somalis: Transnational Communities and the Transformation of Nation and State”, Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd (2016); “Transnational NGOs: Creative Connections of Development and Global Governance”, Aalborg University Press, Denmark” (2014); “China-Africa Relations in an Era of Great Transformations” Ashgate Publishing: London UK (2013)”.

Head of Programmes

Mr. Ahmed H. Abdi

Mr Ahmed H. Abdi is the Head of Programmes at Raad Peace Research Institute.  Ahmed obtained his BA (Hons) in Economics and International Relations from the University of Bristol and an MSc in Management from the University of Newport. He has more two decades of  experience in senior civil service and consultancy positions including holding several senior positions at the Information and Communications Ministry of Somalia, where he demonstrated a deep commitment to driving change and promoting development. He also managed a regeneration project worth over £50 million in the UK, where he showcased his exceptional leadership and management skills.

Office Manager

FOWZIA ABDULHAFID HUSSEIN

FOWZIA ABDULHAFID HUSSEIN is the Read’s Mogadishu Office Manager. she has worked for various international NGOS  and the UNICEF in Somalia and holds a bachelor’s degree in management  and Business administration.

Office Manager

Clifford Collins Omondi

Clifford Collins Omondi Okwany is Raad”s Nairobi Office manager. He is a political scientist trained in Kenya and Norway and isconsidered international security and foreign policy an expert  and specialises in ontological security, conflict and violence includingcommunal violence, and armed non-state actor.

Dr. Salma Abdalla

Salma Abdalla holds a Ph.D. in Political Geography from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and a Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Khartoum. Since 2015 she held researcher positions in Germany and Norway and has been a member of international research projects with universities in France and Sweden. Her primary field of research has been political violence, good governance, strategies for development transformation, and religion-politics relationships. Since 2021 she has worked as a consultant for think tanks and research institutions on issues of governance and transformation of Sudan.  She also provided policy advice to the Life and Peace Institute in the Horn of Africa, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, and to the Bertelsmann Stiftung in Germany.

Prof. Dr. Stig Jarle Hansen

Stig Hansen

Prof. Dr. Stig Jarle Hansen is a Senior Fellow and special advisor at Raad Peace Research Institute. He works primarily within the fields of organized crime, religion and politics and political theory. Geographically, his focus is on the wider East and the Horn of Africaregions (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia Uganda, Yemen) and the middle East.  His latest book, ‘Al-Shabaab in Somalia’ was critically acclaimed by Foreign Policy and The Economist, amongst others. Hansen is a world expert on Islamism in the Horn of Africa and the Shabaab Group, and has commented for CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Reuters, CCTV 4 and many other international media outlets. He is currently leading Norway’s only Master program in International Relations.

Prof. Dr. Abdi Gele

Prof. Dr. Abdi Gele is a Senior Fellow at Raad Peace Research Institute. He has received his PhD in Epidemiology from University of Oslo. His main research interests span the fields of conflicts nexus health, health governance, as well as maternal and reproductive health, epidemiology, health promotion, intervention and evaluation of health polices in Africa. He currently supervises two PhD and four master students, and he authored dozens of peer-reviewed articles, mostly about the health of Somali people in the Horn of Africa and immigrants in Europe. Currently, he is a visiting professor at the School of Public Health & Research, Somali National University. 

Dr. Amina Jama Mahmud

Dr Amina Jama Mahmud

Dr Amina Jama Mahmud is a Senior Fellow at Raad Peace Research Institute. She holds a PhD in Applied Health Technology, a master’s in media and Communications for Development from Sweden and is a Research Associate at Uppsala University in Sweden. Her research focuses on political massaging, public opinion formulation, protracted displacement, gender, and social inclusion and has published extensively on these issues. She has worked in the past as a senior policy advisor for the Federal Somali Government and is currently working as a Program Director for Save the Children International

Prof. Markus Virgil Hoehne

Pro. Markus

Professor Markus Virgil Hoehne is a Senior Associate at Raad Peace Research Institute and lecturer at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Leipzig. He received his PhD from the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and worked for ten years at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale). He researches Somali affairs and anthropology of conflict; his most recent project focuses on forensic anthropology in cultural context, based on research in Somaliland and Peru. He published Between Somaliland and Puntland: Marginalization, Militarization and Conflicting Political Visions (Rift Valley Institute, 2015) and is co-editor of Borders and Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa (James Currey, 2010), The State and the Paradox of Customary Law in Africa (Routledge, 2018) and Dynamics of Identification and Conflict: Anthropological Encounters (Berghahn, 2023).

Dr. Marco Zoppi

Dr Marco Zoppi is a Senior Fellow at the Raad Peace Research Institute and holds a MA in African Studies from the University of Copenhagen and a PhD in Histories and Dynamics of Globalization from Roskilde University in Denmark. His main research focuses on migration, the Somali diaspora, Europe-Somalia relations, federalism in Somalia and the Horn, contested borders, colonial history, and the welfare and security of the Somali diaspora in Scandinavian countries. His publications have appeared in journals such as Mediterranean Politics, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, and African Economic History. Currently, he is a Post-Doc Research Fellow at the University of Bologna, involved in projects funded by the European Commission, Adrion Interreg, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and ESPON. His research plans and interests include the Somali diaspora, Italian colonialism in Somalia, and EU relations with the Horn of Africa, particularly in the security field.

Ana Carina Franco

Ana Carina

Ana Carina Franco is a research fellow, lecturer and PhD candidate in IR at NOVA University Lisbon and the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI-NOVA). She holds degrees in Political Science and IR from the NOVA University Lisbon and the Catholic University of Louvain. A former international aid worker, Ana Carina has conducted several independent evaluations for the European Union (EU), mainly on peace and conflict topics, and was reporting officer of EU’s Common Security & Defense Policy civilian mission in Somalia. Her research focuses on external interventions, peace and state-building & conflict dynamics focusing on East & West Africa. Her recent publications include EU peacebuilding in the Horn of africa & articles: “Response to the Somali and Malian Jihadist Movements: What Lessons for Mozambique?” (Political Observer – Revista Portuguesa de Ciência Política) and “External interventions in Mali and its borderlands – a case for stabilisation” (http://Janus.net, e-journal of International Relations).