Ambassador Jean W. Kimani, MBS, is a distinguished career diplomat with over 40 years of experience in international relations, diplomacy, and peacebuilding. As Kenya’s High Commissioner to Botswana and Permanent Representative to UN-Habitat, she championed global urbanization, housing, and climate resilience initiatives.

Ambassador Kimani has played a pivotal role in advancing peace and security resolutions, human rights, and disarmament, earning a UN Fellowship on Disarmament. Her expertise in negotiating bilateral agreements has strengthened trade, investment, and diaspora relations, while her leadership in platforms such as IGAD and the Great Lakes Conference has reinforced Kenya’s commitment to regional stability and economic cooperation.

As moderator of the Reaching for Peace webinar, she will guide discussions on practical approaches to fostering lasting peace and security in Africa.

Idil Absiye is a highly experienced Regional Policy Specialist at UN Women, with over 20 years of expertise in program management and a strong focus on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS). With a rich background working alongside multilateral organizations, civil society, and government actors, Idil has made significant contributions to shaping policies that advance gender equality in conflict-affected regions. She has spent 16 years advocating for WPS, fostering strong partnerships with national and regional actors, including the Security Sector, national peace architectures and Counter-Terrorism institutions.
Notably, Idil oversaw the development of Kenya’s first Gender Policy within the Ministry of Defence and led efforts to integrate WPS recommendations into the country’s National Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism (NSCVE). She also played a pivotal role in ensuring the alignment of WPS with national priorities, supporting the Kenyan government in developing and implementing Kenya National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, and the Beijing+20 implementation. Idil’s work is instrumental in ensuring that women’s rights and gender perspectives are at the heart of peace and security strategies across Africa.

Louise is a highly skilled and accomplished consultant with a deep expertise in conflict management, security, and political crises, particularly in the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes region, and East Africa. Her extensive experience in the field has enabled her to cultivate exceptional analytical, facilitation mediation, research and writing skills. By engaging directly with conflict zones, Louise has a good understanding of the community, players and local contexts.
She excels in producing valuable qualitative and quantitative data sets tailored to the specific needs of various users, leading to concrete conclusions and impactful recommendations for both policy and practice. Louise operates at multiple levels, from working with grassroots communities to advising high-level policymakers, as well as critical multilateral and bilateral organizations. Her impressive client portfolio includes the UN, the Foreign, SIDA, DANIDA, FCDO, the World Bank, international NGO’s and private sector particularly political risk firms, where she rigorously investigates the root causes of conflict political economy, socio-cultural and socio-economic ramifications of programs and investments.
Her methodical and comprehensive approach to conflicts, political economy, dialogue, and research ensures that she delivers robust and effective strategies. She also works to address the unique challenges faced by marginalized groups, particularly women and youth, and examining how these factors influence projects and proposed solutions. Louise has a well-rounded and rigorous approach to any conflict, political economy, dialogue, or research work she is involved in. She has participated in many local to high level conflicts resolution and mediation processes and is on the mediation rooster of the Centre For Humanitarian Dialogue.