Levinia Addae-Mensah is a peace and security practitioner with over 30 years experience in various themes within the field of Peace, Security, Governance and Development. She is the current and first female Executive Director of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). Her vast experience in peace and security spans from working with local community groups, Civil Society Organisations and academics to working with security actors, policy makers and State Institutions in the areas of Security Sector Governance, Violent Extremism, Election Management, Gender and Youth in Peace and Security and in Dialogue and Mediation. Her passion in the field of peace and security has driven her to work in extremely dynamic and volatile contexts such as in Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, and Cote d’Ivoire during their respective civil war eras and where she made significant contributions to the peace processes in Liberia and Burundi in particular. With both theoretical and practical experiences, she has contributed to research, the design, development and delivery of various training programmes as well as to policy development across the African continent and parts of Europe, namely in UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark. She has also engaged extensively with Inter-Governmental Organisation, State and Non-State Institutions to design and develop Infrastructures for Peace, Multistakeloder Dialogue mechanisms and processes, and various security strategies and frameworks. Prior to joining WANEP, Levinia Addae-Mensah worked with International Alert in the UK and with the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra Additionally, she has undertaken several consultancy assignments for many International Organisations, Government Institutions and Civil Society Organisations. She currently serves as a peace and security expert on Boards and steering committees of a number of national, continental and global institutions.
