Dr Barbra Lukunka

Dr Barbra Lukunka is a scholar-practitioner with expertise in local peacebuilding, forced migration and women's empowerment. She holds a PhD in Social-Cultural Anthropology from American University in Washington DC and a Master of Arts in International Peace and Conflict Resolution.

She has extensive experience with the United Nations, with postings in Burundi, Haiti and New York. In her UN work she provides strategic, policy and programmatic guidance on local peacebuilding, human security, prevention of violent extremism, women's empowerment and climate-security. She engages in partnership building and member state engagement, and plays a senior technical representational role in high-level discussions on the frontier issues shaping migration, peacebuilding and humanitarian affairs.

Her published work, developed from her doctoral research, examines the meaning of return after prolonged exile, rebuilding and reintegration in post-conflict contexts, peacebuilding in the face of interpersonal violence, and the prevalence of gender-based violence in situations of forced migration.