Guide to Specialists

Abiodun Williams
Vice President, Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention

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E-mail: awilliams@usip.org

Abiodun Williams is vice president of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. Previously, he served as associate dean of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. From 2001 to 2007, he served as director of the Strategic Planning Unit in the Executive Office of the U.N. Secretary General. In that capacity, he advised secretaries-general Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon on a full range of strategic issues including U.N. reform, conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and international migration. He also managed relations with the U.N.’s international research and training institutes. He had three peacekeeping assignments: special assistant to the deputy special representative of the secretary-general, U.N. Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1999-2000.); special assistant to the representative of the secretary-general in Haiti (1998-2000); and political and humanitarian affairs officer, U.N. Preventive Deployment Force in Macedonia (1994-1998).

His previous academic appointments include: assistant professor of international relations at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University (1988-1994); visiting assistant professor in the political science department at the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies, University of Rochester (1987-1988); and teaching assistant and lecturer at Tufts University (1984-1987).

Dr. Williams is vice-chair of the Academic Council on the U.N. System, member of the editorial board of Global Governance, honorary fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, and advisor to the Club of The Hague on the future of Refugee and Migration Policy. He has served on the International Board of Directors of the United World Colleges, the Board of Trustees of Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific, the Board of Directors of Jesuit International Volunteers, and the Advisory Board of QSI International School of Skopje. He has published widely on conflict prevention, peacekeeping operations and multilateral negotiations.

In 1990, Dr. Williams was awarded a Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and the Constantine E. McGuire Medal by Georgetown University in 1991. He won the School of Foreign Service’s Outstanding Teaching Award in 1992. Dr. Williams holds an M.A. (honors) in english language and literature from Edinburgh University, and an M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Publications:

• "The United Nations and International Crisis Management," Global Forces 2007: Proceedings of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI, 2007).
• "The United Nations and Peace Operations," Dean Rusk Center Occasional Papers No. 2 (University of Georgia School of Law, 2003).
• Preventing War: The United Nations and Macedonia (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000).
• Many Voices: Multilateral Negotiations in the World Arena (editor). (Westview Press, 1992).
• "The United Nations and Preventive Deployment in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia," Adapting the United Nations to a Postmodern Era: Lessons Learned, edited by W. Andy Knight (Palgrave, 2001).
• "Sierra Leone and the United Nations System," State Society, and the United Nations System: Changing Perspectives on Multilateralism, edited by Keith Krause and W. Andy Knight (United Nations University Press, 1995).
• "Negotiations and the end of the Angolan Civil War," Making War and Waging Peace: Foreign Intervention in Africa, edited by David R. Smock (USIP Press, 1993).
• "Regional Peacemaking: ECOWAS and the Liberian Civil War," The Diplomatic Record 1990-1991, edited by David Newsom (Westview Press, 1991).
• "In Search of Peace: Negotiations to end the Angolan Civil War," Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Case Study (1995).
• "Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter," Academic Council on the UN System Report #5 (1994).