Golda Keng is a Cameroonian human security policy analyst, critical pedagogue and feminist with an extensive career in education, advocacy, peacebuilding and conflict resolution programming. She currently supports various initiatives as an independent expert.
Prior to that, from July 2020 Keng supported the Lake Chad Basin Regional Stabilisation Strategy for areas most affected by the Boko Haram insurgency, seconded by the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP). Prior to that, she worked for the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), as Project Manager for the Dutch-funded Africa Peace and Security Dialogue (APSD) project, within the Addis Ababa Peace and Security Research Programme.
Ms. Keng previously coordinated and managed the ISS’ African Center for Peace and Security Training (ACPST), from 2012 till 2017. Both positions focus on needs-based knowledge generation and capacity building for targeted human security practitioners and policy-makers across the African continent. They address gaps in human security policy and decision-making by developing and hosting multi-stakeholder policy dialogues and training seminars that enhance the knowledge and skills of these officials to inform the development and domestication of human-centred policies.
Keng is also a passionate advocate for youth and women’s rights and empowerment. She serves as guest lecturer at several African universities on subjects covering human security policy, peacebuilding, radicalization and conflict transformation – with an emphasis on intersections with youth and women. Her research interests cover conflict trends, new threats to peace and security, the security-development nexus, and their links to leadership and governance. She advocates for paradigm shifts in conflict prevention and peacebuilding in Africa, youth and women’s resilience and community adaptability strategies.
She holds a Masters’ degree in Peace Education from the UN mandated University for Peace (UPEACE) in Costa Rica (2008); a graduate diploma in Security, Development and Conflict Transformation, from the University of Innsbruck, Austria (2012); and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Peace, Governance and Development with UPEACE Africa Programme in Ethiopia (2022).
