SSRC Names 2026 Fellows to Advance African Peacebuilding Research
The New York-based Social Science Research Council has named 14 scholars to its 2026 African Peacebuilding and Developmental Dynamics cohort, supporting work that connects rigorous African scholarship with practical routes to peace. Nine Individual Research Fellows, one Research Policy Fellow and four Doctoral Proposal Fellows will examine borderland violence, gender and governance, cultural performance, resource extraction, climate pressures and community security.
Backed by continuing support from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, the cohort spans Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, South Sudan and Tanzania. Each award places an upcoming project at the center of the fellow’s next phase of research.
Individual Research Fellows
Amogne Asfaw Eshetu, an associate professor at Wollo University, brings more than 30 years of teaching, research and academic leadership to the cohort. He has published more than 32 peer-reviewed articles and led nationally and internationally funded projects on climate resilience, livelihoods and environmental sustainability. His fellowship will investigate recurring ethnic violence along the Amhara–Oromo borderlands, identifying its drivers and dynamics while assessing locally grounded peacebuilding pathways at Ethiopia’s internal frontiers.
Lona James Elia, an assistant professor at the University of Juba, draws on 25 years of work across gender equality, democratic governance and institutional development. Her recent academic and policy leadership includes research at the Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies and participation in national and regional women’s peace networks. Her forthcoming study will compare women’s political leadership in post-conflict Africa, asking how participation can strengthen peacebuilding, democratic governance and durable institutional reform.
Lucy Michael Iseyen, a lecturer and researcher at Akwa Ibom State University, most recently became acting director of its Centre for African Arts and Festival Studies in 2025, following three years as acting head of Performing Arts and festival director of AKSUFEST. Building on her scholarship in arts management, indigenous performance and cultural sustainability, she will study how ritual, theatre and music in the Ekpo Masquerade Festival can support social cohesion and peace.
Salma K. Khatibu, a development studies lecturer at the University of Dodoma, has built a 15-year record in environmental governance, climate adaptation and community engagement. Her recent interdisciplinary work combines participatory, geospatial, qualitative and quantitative methods to examine conservation conflict and rural resilience. The new fellowship will assess whether community-based natural resource management in Tanzania’s Ruaha-Rungwa landscape can reduce tensions, improve inclusion and create practical foundations for environmental peacebuilding.
Zainab Nuhu, a senior lecturer at Bayero University and postdoctoral researcher with the University of Greenwich’s Prosperity and Peace Pathways Project, recently completed fieldwork in Nigeria. Her collaborations with FAO, the British Council and ILRI have explored resource conflict and intergroup relations. She will now trace the evolution of insecurity and crime economies in northwestern Nigeria’s borderlands, emphasizing community-led, gender-responsive responses that include women, young people and people with disabilities.
Deborah Odu Obor, a research fellow at Nigeria’s Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, recently led the 2024–25 Nigeria–Benin Border Communities Peace and Security Initiative and contributed to the University of Greenwich’s Sahel Conflict Economy project. Combining sociology with conflict-transformation practice, she will map how informal activity becomes shadow and conflict economies in the Nigeria–Benin borderlands, with particular attention to networked governance and policy options for sustainable peace.
Sabina Appiah-Boateng, a senior research fellow in peace studies at the University of Cape Coast, brings expertise spanning psychology, development, conflict and mental health. A former African Humanities Program and SSRC Next Generation fellow, she has also advised organizations including USAID, UNDP, WANEP and Ghana’s National Peace Council. Her upcoming project will investigate the psychosocial mechanisms of fishing songs and their potential to promote sonic healing, social repair and peacebuilding in coastal communities.
Nwani-Grace Ugwu, a lecturer at Ebonyi State University, has published widely on pragmatics, discourse, gender dynamics and language in conflict resolution, including research supported by Nigeria’s Tertiary Education Trust Fund. Her work foregrounds women’s agency, indigenous knowledge and social justice in southeastern Nigeria. She will next appraise the strategic discursive role of traditional Igbo women’s groups, drawing lessons from their communication practices for peacebuilding and stronger intergroup relations.
Franklin Pyokpung Zaure, a lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University, combines theatre research, development communication and community practice. His recent distinctions include Fulbright Visiting Research, RiseUpTogether and Accountable Adaptation fellowships, alongside leadership of Artists Against Desolation and two grassroots creative organizations. His APDD project will test how Afropop and theatre can expand youth civic engagement in Jos, using familiar cultural forms to build participation, environmental awareness and locally resonant pathways to peace.
Research Policy Fellow
Lilian Namuma S. Kong’ani, the cohort’s Research Policy Fellow and a lecturer at the University of Nairobi, recently co-led governance research and stakeholder engagement for the Cascading Climate and Health Risks in African Cities project. A 2022 SSRC African Peacebuilding Network fellowship laureate, she studies inequality, environmental justice and participatory governance. Her new project will reframe the “Silencing the Guns” agenda through climate, women and peace in Africa’s drylands, translating research into inclusive policy.
Doctoral Proposal Fellows
Michael Fajobi Ayobami, a political science and international relations doctoral candidate at Covenant University, received Nigeria’s 2022 Federal Scholarship Board Award for academic excellence during his master’s studies. His research connects environmental security, resource governance, energy politics and regional integration. The proposed dissertation will examine the political economy of artisanal sand mining in Ota, Ogun State, investigating how extraction reshapes environmental security and identifying evidence that can guide governance, conflict resolution and sustainable development policy.
Kabiru Shaaibu, a doctoral researcher at Lagos State University’s Centre for Peace and Security Studies, recently added a 2024 postgraduate diploma in criminology and security studies to degrees in international relations and strategic studies. His professional experience in security, intelligence and conflict management grounds his scholarship. His proposed research will evaluate state and non-state responses to banditry and kidnapping in Zamfara and Katsina from 2016 to 2026, linking operational practice with human-security policy.
Jane Waruguru Kimathi, a Kenyan Catholic nun and a doctoral student at Tangaza University’s Institute of Social Transformation, combines scholarship with 15 years of peacebuilding, refugee protection, human-rights advocacy and gender-justice practice. She currently serves part time as programs director for the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network and has published on trafficking, safeguarding and women in peacebuilding. Her proposed study will examine how governance shapes refugee women’s lived experience and social transformation in Kenya’s Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement.
Ithabeleng Mokoena, an environmental and social history doctoral researcher at Rhodes University, brings recent experience in archival research, environmental-impact work and community-based oral history. Her interdisciplinary, decolonial approach recovers local and marginalized perspectives through “history from below.” Her proposed dissertation will reconstruct the sociopolitical economy of aggregate mining in Lesotho from 1967 to 2022, showing how communities experienced extraction over time and offering historically grounded insights for environmental governance today.
Together, the projects move beyond broad accounts of conflict to examine the institutions, cultural practices and everyday economies through which peace is built or undermined. By pairing established scholars with emerging researchers and emphasizing policy engagement, APDD’s 2026 cohort is positioned to produce locally grounded and regionally connected scholarship directed toward action hat addresses some of the continent’s most persistent peacebuilding challenges.
