Mediators

Katarina Kresal is President and Founder of the European Centre for Dispute Resolution, a regional institutional provider of alternative dispute resolution procedures and consulting institution for the Rule of Law projects, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. A specific expertise of Ms. Kresal as an ADR expert is in designing mediation systems and various ADR schemes, their capacities, including the integration of women, and she is engaged in various international projects as an international consultant. Ms. Kresal is also Managing Partner and Head of the Dispute Resolution Department at the Law Firm Miro Senica and Attorneys, Ltd. Prior to her work as an attorney she gained her experience in dispute resolution and corporate commercial matters as an independent advisor, director of the legal department and member of supervisory boards in various Slovenian companies as well as a judicial clerk in the biggest court in Slovenia – the District Court of Ljubljana. Apart from her extensive legal career, Ms Kresal is a prominent political figure, having served as Minister of the Interior, member of the National Assembly (MP) and president of the parliamentary party Liberal Democracy of Slovenia as well as vice-president of the Liberal International.

Lea Baroudi is a founding Member and Director of MARCH since 2012, a Lebanese non-profit organization focusing on sectarian conflict resolution, promoting diversity and equality and sustainable peace building, including the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

A certified professional mediator and a member of the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network, Ms. Baroudi has experience in resolving sectarian conflicts and foster peace among marginalized communities and has initiated and worked actively on peace-building projects that use art, culture, women inclusion and economic development to resolve conflict and counter radicalization among youth participating in sectarian violence in marginalized areas of Lebanon, particularly in Tripoli and Beirut.

She has also co-lead several in depth research papers and policy recommendations on fundamental security and human rights issues in Lebanon, such as political violence, radicalization and statelessness. In 2016, she was granted the Reagan-Fascell Fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy during which she researched ways to develop unconventional methods in peacebuilding and conflict resolution.

In January 2019, she spoke at the UN Security Council Arria Formula meeting titled “What’s next for Women, Peace and Security in Middle East and North Africa: The Potential of National Action Plans”. She was recently awarded an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty the Queen for services to peacebuilding and civic rights in Lebanon.

Saida Bounab is a Member of Parliament of the People’s National Assembly. From 1984 until 1993 she was a trainer and Head of Services for the Training Academy in Algiers. Afterwards, until 1997, she was appointed Deputy Director of the National Training Centre for Social Workers; where she was then appointed Director by a presidential decree. After leaving her role in 2007, she was elected mayor of Kouba (Algiers) until 2012. During those years she was also the president of the “Groupe Parlementaire d’Amitié Algérie-Sahara Occidental”. From 2015 to 2017 she was appointed Rapporteur of the Finance and Budget Commission at the People’s National Assembly. Additionally, she has been a member of Parliament for two consecutive mandates since 2012 and a member of the Commission on Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Emigration. She has conducted trainings on communication techniques and conflict managements and has collaborated in the design of various projects. Additionally, as a psychologist she works with victims of terrorism and victims of war. Founding member of MWMN, she has joined the network for its members and the dynamics that it creates between them but also to share her experience with all the members of the networks or other organisations to contribute to the resolution of conflicts and allow for humanity to live in a better world.

Esra Çuhadar is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey and a senior fellow at the Inclusive Peace and Transition Initiative in Geneva. Previously a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, she also worked at Sabancı University, Istanbul. She received her M.A, Ph.D. and an advanced graduate certificate in applied conflict resolution from Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. She has been published widely in top academic journals and in over twenty book chapters and has won numerous research grants on inclusive peace processes, mediation, track two diplomacy and role of civil society in peacebuilding, evaluation of peacebuilding, negotiation pedagogy, and political leadership. She has also conducted numerous trainings and consultations in negotiation and mediation processes for various groups and organizations around the world. She has been working as a regional mediator for the World Bank in Turkey and Caucasus since 2011 and in the mediation roster of the OSCE since 2015. She was elected as a member of the International Society for Political Psychology Governing Council (2010-2012) and also served as a board member of the European Mediation Network Initiative between 2007 and 2010. She is a core member of the MWNM and the MWMN Turkey antenna launched in 2019 as it allows her to share mediation expertise with other women and act in solidarity to face challenges to women’s inclusion in peace processes.