Khadija O. Ali

Khadija O. Ali, a doctoral student at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, is being spotlighted this month for her tireless efforts to bring peace and stability to Somalia. Ali, a former member of the Somali Transitional National Parliament and a Minister of State at the Transitional National Government from 2000 to 2002, recently briefed the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on the conflict in the Horn of Africa.

Organized by the African subcommittee, Ali discussed critical next steps for the United States in dealing with Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, Ethiopia’s troop presence, African Union peacekeeping forces, the national reconciliation conference and the moderate Islamic leadership in Mogadishu. Complementing her policy advocacy on the Hill, Ali provides frequent conflict analysis on the situation in Somalia for several media outlets including the Arab News and Daily News Egypt (two of the largest English language newspapers in the Middle East and northern Africa respectively) and Foreign Policy in Focus, an online foreign policy journal in the United States.

Additionally, Ali regularly convenes and facilitates dialogue among the Somali- American diaspora vis-à-vis critical next steps for resolving the conflict in Somalia. Most recently, Ali co-organized a meeting of 150 diaspora in Columbus, Ohio, to forge a declaration concerning Somalia; a statement that ultimately called for the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops, neutral peacekeeping forces, reconciliation processes involving all stakeholders, and a fairly elected government. Ali’s doctoral dissertation is on the role of political leadership in post-conflict peacebuilding processes in transitional societies. Comparing Mozambique and Somalia, her research will examine how and why certain political leaders/systems are able to bring peace and stability while others are not.