Geneva Peace Week 2020: Adaptive Leadership in Support of Sustaining Peace in a Pandemic Environment

Rebuilding trust after disruption

The Geneva Centre for Security Policy, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs the International Leadership Association and the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON) are pleased to host a virtual live session during the 2020 Geneva Peace Week.

About this Event

This session will explore and confirm essential adaptive leadership principles that are required to steer peacebuilding and peace operations through a major disruptive event like the COVID-19 experience.

The objective of the session is (a) to identify lessons and useful leadership practices from the current peacebuilding and peace operations experience;  (b) to use these to generate adaptive leadership principles for managing major disruptions, like COVID19; (c) to codify and share these principles with policy makers, practitioners and educational and training institutions.

Members of Panel

• Ms Annika Hilding Norberg, Head of Peace Operations and Peacebuilding, GCSP
• Dr Cedric de Coning, Research Professor, NUPI & Senior Advisor, ACCORD
• Dr Lise Howard, Associate Professor (tenured), Department of Government, Georgetown University
• Mr Ralph Mamiya, Executive-in-Residence, GCSP, and Non-resident Advisor, International Peace Institute
• Prof Dr Mike Hardy, CMG OBE FRSA, Chair, International Leadership Association; Professor of Intercultural Relations and founding Director of the Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations, Coventry University

To learn more about our panelists, please download their bios here.

This panel conversation is part of a two-step process with two consecutive sessions, the present one at the Geneva Peace Week on 5 November, and a second session at the International Leadership Associations Annual Conference on 8 November. The Geneva Peace Week session will draw on evidence-based research generated by the EPON Network to identify emerging lessons and useful practices for leading peace operations and peacebuilding through a major disruption like COVID-19. A number of aspects will be considered, including but not limited to, the role of strategic communications and digital technology, of consultations and other means to shape both the global and local stakeholder environment, of strengthening the resilience of the mission organization and staff. By using case studies and evidence based research from relevant missions, as well as having a practical output (identifying principles of adaptive leadership that will be validated and later codified), it is envisioned that the two sessions will be general enough to be able to draw broader conclusions and generate larger interest, while also being specific enough to provide evidence-based and concrete findings.