Afghanistanuka 2022

Andrew Watkins is a senior expert on Afghanistan for the U.S. Institute of Peace and has worked in and on Afghanistan in a number of roles. He was previously the senior analyst on Afghanistan for the International Crisis Group, where he researched and published reports and commentary on the country’s conflict and politics. He was also an analyst of insurgent groups for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and studied the Taliban as an independent researcher. As an advisor to humanitarian organizations based across the country, he traveled widely and conducted extensive field research. He also served as a liaison with local security forces for several years.

Anne Likuski is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). She specialises in the study of Islamist militancy, notably in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dr. Stenersen speaks Arabic, Russian and some Persian, and has conducted extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2008. She is the author of Al-Qaida in Afghanistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Al-Qaida’s quest for weapons of mass destruction: The history behind the hype (Saarbrücken: VMD, 2007). She has published in international journals such as Perspectives on Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. In addition, she has written several book chapters, blog posts and op-eds, and she is frequently used as an expert commentator on terrorism in the Norwegian and international media.

Anniken Huitfeldt was the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2021-2023. She previously served as Minister of Children and Equality from 2008 to 2009, Minister of Culture from 2009 to 2012 and Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion from 2012 to 2013. Huitfeldt has a bachelor degree in political science and history from the University of Oslo, basic courses in geography from London School of Economics and a master degree in History from the University of Oslo.

Arne Strand has a PhD in Post-war Recovery Studies through which he studied coordination of humanitarian assistance in complex emergencies. His research focuses on aid coordination, forced migration and reintegration, peace building and security sector reform and humanitarian and development assistance.

Strand has been team leader of several evaluations and research programmes in and on Afghanistan. He has extensive management experience from NGOs and research institutes, and has also been involved in developing management and professional capacities of Afghan NGOs and peacebuilding organisations.

Cecilie Hellestveit is a Norwegian lawyer, international law expert, conflict researcher and foreign policy commentator. She is educated as a lawyer and social scientist with language and area studies in Arabic and Russian, and has a doctorate in international humanitarian law on the rules for combat in civil war.

Elisabeth Eide is a Norwegian writer, journalist and professor. Eide works at the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, and has written multiple academic books, articles, and novels. Eide had her novel debut in 1994 with the book Til Kabul faller. She has worked in The Norwegian Afghanistan Committee and the Norwegian PEN.

Frode Kristoffersen is a Norwegian officer. He was appointed brigadier and head of the department for education, planning and operations in the Norwegian Intelligence Service in 2020. He has previously been the head of the Swedish Armed Forces’ special command. In 2013, Kristoffersen was awarded the St. Olavs medal with oak branch «for outstandingly displaying personal bravery and leadership during combat in international operations in Afghanistan in 2007”.

Haroun Rahimi is an Assistant Professor of Law at the American University of Afghanistan and a Visiting Professor of Law at Bocconi University School of Law. Rahimi’s research focuses on economic laws, institutional reform, Islamic finance, and divergent conceptions of rule of law in Muslim and modern thoughts, and religious authority. Rahimi has also collaborated as an independent consultant with several research firms and policy think tanks conducting policy research on institutional development and good governance in the South Asia context. Rahimi was a visiting scholar at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) in Rome. More recently, Haroun Rahimi has become Global Academy Scholar at MESA.

Hasina Shirzad is a journalist living in Oslo, Norway. She holds a Bachelors from the University of Kabul. She has worked as a communications advisor for Afghanistan’s electoral committee, with UNESCO in Kabul, and the Afghan journalism team and for Khurshid-TV. After she was injured by a car bomb, she left Afghanistan for Norway in 2015. In Norway she has worked with Dagbladet, NOAS and Journalism Media International Centre. She is engaged with Norwegian and international media and has written for The Guardian, Aftenposten and Dagbladet. She is studying for a Masters of Journalism at Oslo Metropolitan University.

Ilaria Carrozza is a Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), where she works on China’s foreign policy; artificial intelligence as a frontier of US-China competition; the ethics of algorithms; dual-use technology; the Digital Silk Road; and the security assistance provided to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. My broader research interests include China’s engagement in Africa and Asia, the Belt and Road Initiative, and South-South cooperation. Prior to joining PRIO, she was the editor of Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 45, and she worked as a consultant at the UNESCAP in Bangkok, where she led a project on sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region. She has a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a MA in Chinese Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Kaja Borchgrevink is a Senior Researcher at PRIO and she takes an interest in religion and development, the politics of aid, and everyday religion among Muslims in Norway – often with a focus on gender and transnational perspectives. Borchgrevink has a background from Development Studies and practical development work in South Asia, and she has studied religious education in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the transnational connections between religious seminaries (madrasas) in the two countries. Earlier research also includes studies of the relationship between civil society and peace building in Afghanistan with a focus on religious groups and networks.

Karim Merchant is currently a freelance consultant on policy, programme and project development and management in the fields of rural development, humanitarian assistance, conflict-sensitive development and peacebuilding. Over the last 23 years, Karim has worked in Afghanistan with local civil society organisations, INGOS, UN Agencies, donors and the several previous Afghan governments. He lectures on Fragile and Conflict Affected States and Peacebuilding and continues to support policy and programme design initiatives for Afghanistan.

Kjetil Anders Hatlebrekke is a practitioner-scholar specializing in intelligence theory and training with a PhD from King’s College in London. Hatlebrekke has served in the Norwegian Armed Forces since 1990, and has operational experience from Bosnia, Kosovo, the Middle East and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan he served as an intelligence officer in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Anaconda, and his is unit was awarded the US Navy Presidential Unit Citation. He is currently Associate Professor at The Norwegian Defense Intelligence School, and Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College in London.

Kristian Berg Harpviken is a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). He is a long-time student of Afghanistan and the surrounding region, a frequent media commentator, and lectures regularly to both scholarly and popular audiences. He is author of Social Networks and Migration in Wartime Afghanistan (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), and (with Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh), A Rock Between Hard Places: Afghanistan as an Arena of Regional Insecurity (Hurst, 2016).

Liv Kjølseth is a Political Scientist, with a postgraduate degree from the University of Oslo, with a specialisation in International Relations. For the last decade she has held the position of Secretary General of the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee (NAC). Prior to joining NAC, she was Information and Advocacy Adviser for the Norwegian Council for the Rights of the Kurdish People. She has previously worked for the Norwegian Directorate for Immigration (UDI).

Masood Karokhail is the Director and co-founder of The Liaison Office (TLO) established 2003 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Under his leadership, TLO has grown into one of Afghanistan’s premier research, peace-building and livelihood NGOs. Karokhail is strongly committed to engaging customary and state institutions to promote good governance, access to justice, livelihood improvements and civil society across Afghanistan. Prior to co-founding TLO, Karokhail worked with the Swiss Peace Foundation (swisspeace) to develop the Afghan Civil Society Forum and as Afghanistan Country Manager for Unilever during the Taliban regime. Karokhail received his MBA from Preston University in Islamabad and Peshawar, Pakistan and was a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Development Research (ZEF) in Bonn

Nagieb Khaja is a Danish journalist, documentary film maker, writer and war correspondent. Khaja is the director of the movie ‘Taliban Land’ which is an account of the Afghan people and how they have been a central part of a political game for more than 50 years. As a war correspondent, Khaja has reported for Al Jazeera English, Vice and BBC from Afghanistan, Syria and Palestine. Khaja has been nominated twice for the Cavling Prize, which is a prestigious Danish journalist award.

Nazifa Jalali is from Zabul, Afghanistan, living in Harstad, Norway. She has worked in 28 provinces of Afghanistan with national and international NGOs. She has traveled to several countries and participated in many political talks with the Taliban as the Afghan women’s representative. One of those talks was the Oslo talk. WILFP – Afghanistan has made a documentary about Nazifa’s Activities in Afghanistan.

Norunn Grande is currently the acting Director of the Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue (NCPD), developing and providing training courses in conflict transformation and dialogue facilitation. She is a political scientist, a mediator for the Norwegian Mediation and Reconciliation Service and a member of the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee’s (NAC) program committee.

Shah Gul Rezaie was elected to represent Ghazni province in Afghanistan’s Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the National Legislature, in 2005. She holds a bachelor’s degree in law and political science from Kabul University and worked as a teacher and principal at a girls’ school in Jaghori before being elected to the Wolesi Jirga. She was evacuated to Norway after the Taliban takeover in the summer of 2021 but is in close contact with her network in Afghanistan.

Dr. Timor Sharan is the former Deputy Minister at Independent Directorate of Local Governance of the Afghan government and the former Senior Policy Analyst for International Crisis Group.

Terje Magnussønn Watterdal is an economist, and an education and disability rights activist. He is currently based in Kabul as the Country Director for the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee (NAC). He has previously worked as education advisor for governments in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and senior expert for different UN agencies in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Asia. He holds postgraduate degrees from University of Mannheim, Germany and University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Dr. Torunn Wimpelmann is a Senior Researcher at Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) where she is currently the Co-director of the research project New Afghan Men, which explores the changing notions of marriage and masculinity in Afghanistan. She is the author of, The Pitfalls of Protection: Gender, Violence and Power in Afghanistan (University of California Press, 2017).

Zarqha Yaftali is the Director of the Women and Children Legal Research Foundation which focuses on promoting and supporting civil society efforts to include women in decision-making at a national level. Ms. Yaftali is Board Member of the Women’s Regional Network (WRN) and Co-chair of the Women Peace and Security working group. She has served as a Board Member of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN) and is currently the Chair of Advocacy for Approval of Family Law, the Sexual Harassment Advocacy Group, and is Co-Chair of the Child Protection Action Network (CPAN).

In addition, she has carried out several large research and action projects directed at the improving public policy focused on women and children. In recognition of her work, she has received numerous awards including: She is the recipient of several awards including Winner of N-Peace Award 2019 From Afghanistan; Receiving an Award from Women Regional Network (WRN); Receiving an Award from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung

Åsne Seierstad is a Norwegian freelance journalist and writer. As a reporter, she is known for her work in war zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently Chechnya. The Bookseller of Kabul, her bestselling book, is an account of the time she spent living with an Afghan family in Kabul after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Her other books include One Hundred And One Days: A Baghdad Journal which describes the three months she spent in Iraq in the build-up to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003; Angel of Grozny: Inside Chechnya, an account of the time she spent in Chechnya after the war; and One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway (2015).