Biography
Professor Funmi Olonisakin is Vice-President and Vice-Principal International and Professor of Security, Leadership and Development at King’s College London.
She is a founding member of the African Leadership Centre (ALC), which aims to build the next generation of African scholars generating cutting edge knowledge for security and development in Africa; and was Director of the Conflict, Security and Development Group (CSDG) at King’s College London (2003 to 2013). Prior to this, she worked in the Office of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict.
In 2015, she was appointed by the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, as one of seven members of the Advisory Group of Experts (AGE) on the Review of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture. She was also appointed in 2016 as a member of the Advisory Group of Experts for the UN Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security. She serves on the board of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and Chairs the Africa Regional Advisory Committee of the Open Society Foundation.
The University of Pretoria appointed Funmi as an Extra-Ordinary Professor in the Department of Political Sciences in 2016. In 2018, the Director-General of UNESCO invited her to join the Council of the United Nations University.
Research
- Studying Future Peace through the lens of Future People
- The emerging African paradigm
- Leadership perspectives in security and development
- Youth, peace and security in developing societies
Funmi has positioned her work to serve as a bridge between academia and the worlds of policy and practice. Her most recent research has focused on 'Reframing narratives of Peace and State Building in Africa' and on 'Future Peace, Society and the State in Africa.'
Further details
See Funmi's research profile