Abiodun Williams
Vice President, Center for Conflict Analysis and
Prevention
Conflict Management | Ethnic Conflict | Negotiation, Peace Talks, Mediation |
Peacekeeping, Police | Post-Conflict Reconstruction | Africa | Europe: Balkans | United
Nations
Phone: (202) 429-4772
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).
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 adviser 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.
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).
- "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).
- Preventing War: The United Nations and Macedonia (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000).
- "In Search of Peace: Negotiations to end the Angolan Civil War," Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy Case Study (1995).
- "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).
- "Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter," Academic Council on the UN System Report #5
(1994).
- "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).
- Many Voices: Multilateral Negotiations in the World Arena (editor). (Westview Press,
1992).
- "Regional Peacemaking: ECOWAS and the Liberian Civil War," The Diplomatic Record
1990-1991, edited by David Newsom (Westview Press, 1991).
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