 Dr Abiodun Williams Sierre Leone Pearson College Vice President, Centre for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. |
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Dr Abiodun Williams (PC 77-79) is Vice President of the Centre for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the United States Institute for Peace, based in Washington DC. Previously, he served as associate dean of the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies at the National Defence University. From 2001-2007, he was director of the Strategic Planning Unit at the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary General. He served in three peacekeeping operations as Special Assistant to the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1999-2000), Special Assistant to the Representative of the Secretary-General in Haiti (1998-1999), and Political and Humanitarian Affairs Adviser to the U.N. Preventive Deployment Force in Macedonia (1994-1998).
Abiodun was the founding Director of the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program at the Institute of International Education from 2000 to 2001. From 1988 to 1994, he served as Assistant Professor of International Relations at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. From 1987 to 1988, he served as Visiting Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department and the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies, University of Rochester. He served as Lecturer in the Political Science Department at Tufts University in 1987.
He is Vice-Chair of the Academic Council on the United Nations System, as well as a Member of the Editorial Board of Global Governance, and the Steering Committee of the Inter-University Consortium on Security and Humanitarian Action, CUNY Graduate Center. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, and an Advisor to the Club of The Hague on the future of Refugee and Migration Policy. He has served on the International Board 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. Abiodun has published widely on conflict prevention, peacekeeping operations and multilateral negotiations. His publications include Preventing War: The United Nations and Macedonia (2000), and Many Voices: Multilateral Negotiations in the World Arena (1992).
In 1990, Abiodun was awarded a Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and the Constantine E. McGuire Medal by Georgetown University in 1991. He won the School of Foreign Service’s Outstanding Teaching Award in 1992.
Abiodun holds an MA (Hon) in English Language and Literature from Edinburgh University. He obtained an MA in Law and Diplomacy and a PhD in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
“My principal at the Sierra Leone Grammar School brought UWC to my attention. He encouraged me to apply. He must have known me very well, for the moment I read about it, I knew it was exactly right for me. UWC fired my imagination. I have always had a strong sense of adventure and curiosity. I like it when things are different; it sparks my curiosity to find out more. So I applied.”
“The main differences between my school and UWC are the obvious ones – the number of students from different nationalities – when I was at UWC we had students from about 50 different countries in the college. We had students from different countries at my old school, but nowhere near the number and diversity of cultures that you get at UWC. Also I needed to learn to cope with living away from home, being away from my family and coping with new, tough academic studies. But also I liked the fact that there was an emphasis on service and community work. These things were all new to me.”
“One of my main achievements to date, has to be the positive impact I have made on my students. I began my working career as an academic. The students I taught at that time have all now gone on to do other interesting things. So many have gone on to do international work – I run into them at the UN and across the world and that is a wonderful feeling. Also I am proud of the work I did when working in UN peacekeeping, in Macedonia, Haiti, and Bosnia. Peacekeeping is one of the UN’s more visible activities and I am pleased to have contributed.”
“UWC really strengthened my interest in international relations – especially in the United Nations. I have a strong interest to learn about people and their cultures. UWC is a mini UN. Also to study at a college named after Lester B Pearson, who accomplished so much at the UN and won a Nobel Peace Prize was a real privilege. My decision to study international relations and work in peacekeeping is directly related to my UWC years.
“Prejudices of any kind are learnt and can of course be unlearnt. Living at a UWC at that very impressionable age with a whole bunch of people from all over the world was a great experience. I often draw on my profound personal experience of UWC to sustain my belief that people from a wide variety of backgrounds can work together and live together in peace”.