It’s 16 years to the day after the attacks on the twin towers and I’m sat in a chilly Nairobi café eating a limp croissant with Gaëlle Le Pottier and trying to work out what it really takes to provide leadership in the face of one of today’s pre-eminent complex problems – violent extremism.
In this blog we look at complexity – not in theory, not in books, but in messy, live, reality. Hamish Wilson interviewed Jarso Guyo Mokku, a pastoralist leader from Northern Kenya, about his perspectives on the changing dynamics of peace and conflict in the region and the increasing complexity he finds himself living in
As we try and learn how to make change happen in complex systems we are seeking out the stories, experiences and advice of other pioneers (and there are lots of them).
If there is one thing I’ve learned recently, it’s that violent extremism is a complex problem. Here in the Horn of Africa, a vast number of potential causal factors exist to incite someone to violence and the connections between them are often hard to see. And yet, despite the complexities, we (the international community) often […]
The past month has been, in a word, complex. I’ve found myself in London helping Google grapple with emerging markets, in Somalia with the British Government wrestling with ongoing conflict and then back to Nairobi overseeing projects tackling issues of community security and extremism. And in amongst it all, I’ve become preoccupied with the search to […]
Our world is insufficiently prepared for an increasingly complex risk environment. This stirring call to arms was recently issued by the World Economic Forum in its Global Risks Report. The Forum’s study of the planet’s most pressing problems reveals that the underlying nature of the risk is changing. The pace of political, economic, social, environmental […]
The nature of war is changing. Two years ago, the State Council declared that global conflict was becoming “more integrated, complex and volatile”. Their view would appear prophetic given the recent spate of hostilities in countries such as Libya, Ukraine, Palestine and Syria, all fuelled by highly combustible combinations of social, political, geographic and resource-based […]
Wasafiri has been commissioned to advise NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) on how to strengthen its planning for, and response to, complex crises in fragile, conflict-affected regions. The ARRC, based in the UK, is a high readiness multinational force headquarters designed to deploy quickly to support crisis management operations worldwide at 5-30 days notice. […]
Wasafiri’s Director Hamish Wilson has been invited by the UK Government to help facilitate an international conference to consider the future of stabilisation. Co-hosted with the Government of Denmark, and joined by representatives from NATO, the EU and the United Nations, the event, to take place in late June, will explore lessons and best practice […]
In 2012 Somalia lay at a crossroads. Two decades of war had left the region devastated, bereft of a functional government and without even the most basic services such as schools or clinics, a society shattered by violent extremism and conflict between rival clans and warlords. The year heralded great change. African Union forces regained […]
