Razia Kimani

Razia Kimani is a peace and development practitioner with 20+ years of experience in 21 conflict, fragile, and post-conflict countries in Africa. She is the Founder of The Peace and Security Advisory. Razia was recruited to the Joint UNDP and DPPA Programme on Building National Capacities for Conflict Prevention Senior Peace and Development Advisor (PDA) roster. She deployed to Eritrea from April to November 2022 as the Senior PDA a.i. where amongst her many achievements, she provided quality anticipatory analysis and strategic advice to the UN Resident Coordinator (RC), UNDP Resident Representative, DPPA, the UN Country Team (UNCT), and the Office of the Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa. Prior to this, Razia who is particularly adept at working with cross-cultural teams, was the Peace and Security Team Leader a.i. covering seven countries in Eastern Africa with USAID/Kenya and East Africa. She effectively led and co-led six and three international teams respectively of 39 staff in 2015-2021, in the design and execution of a $53.3 million conflict prevention and preventing violent extremism (PVE) portfolio. In addition, Razia was appointed as the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) and Deputy Office Director a.i. for the Office of Democratic Governance and Peace at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She successfully oversaw and managed an $85.6 million budget and team of nine from March to September 2020 within budget, timelines, and with high team performance working-from-home in a crisis environment. Razia was an international consultant in conflict prevention and peacebuilding for four years (2011-2015) where amongst her many achievements, she successfully forecast violence, conflict, and humanitarian crisis in 11 countries. This work for UN OCHA, was critical for UNCTs, headquarters, and briefing the UN Security Council. Other clients included three UN agencies and three international NGOs. Razia held several competency-building positions before this as: Peacebuilding Unit Coordinator with ACCORD in South Africa; Regional Project Manager for Women’s Land Rights in Southern Africa for ActionAid International; and four years (2004 to 2008) in various capacities with FECCLAHA. The latter’s peacebuilding work shaped Razia as a systems thinker who can synthesise data to see patterns and the narrative of what is happening. Razia holds two Bachelors in International Relations and in Psychology and a Masters in Violence, Conflict, and Development from the University of London. She is an alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School Senior Executive Fellows programme.