The Experts
Nick Zuroski,
Senior Manager for Policy & Advocacy
Maria Tata,
Senior Associate for Policy & Advocacy
AfP advocates and educates to ensure conflict prevention, violence reduction, and peacebuilding best practices and research correlate to better policies, legal frameworks, programming, and resources.
Accelerating collective action through collaboration and exchange
AfP conducts on- and off-the record high-level strategy sessions with policymakers, lawmakers, donors, members, and experts to address the peacebuilding fields’ most pressing issues.
AfP develops robust coalitions of experts and practitioners and convenes communities of practice that drive innovation and action on pressing peacebuilding challenges, including the GFA Coalition and working groups on Conflict Sensitivity and Integration, Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/ CVE), Locally-Led Peacebuilding, U.S. Peace, Justice, and Democracy, and Digital Peacebuilding.
AfP regularly convenes learning and solution oriented events on key conflict issues such as increasing conflict dynamics in the U.S., integrating conflict prevention and climate change, and the Afghanistan crisis and other conflict affected and fragile states.
Advocating for policies, laws, and funding to advance the peacebuilding field
AfP Co-leads the Global Fragility Act (GFA) Coalition with Mercy Corps, comprised of more than 100 organizations working to ensure successful implementation of the GFA, a game-changing law that centers conflict prevention in five priority countries/region.
AfP releases a U.S. Congressional Briefing Book biannually as the U.S. elects a new congress as well as Priorities for the New U.S. Presidential Agenda with each change in presidency to serve as a guide for the peacebuilding community’s U.S. advocacy.
AfP is continuing our advocacy efforts beyond U.S. policymakers and lawmakers to bilateral and multilateral donors, engaging with officials from the United Nations, European Union, International Monetary Fund, and World Health Organization.
In December 2021, AfP moderated a closed roundtable discussion hosted by the U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP), The Stimson Center, Refugees International, and the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area that considered near and medium-term recommended actions for the Biden Administration to rebuild U.S.-UN relations and renew U.S. leadership at the UN in key priority areas for U.S. foreign policy, resulting in a brief.
Developing an evidence base and standards of practice for better policies and practices and aligning the field on shared approaches
AfP promotes inclusion in the peacebuilding field, including via implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Act and locally-led peacebuilding.
AfP publishes cutting-edge, actionable policy briefs on topics like creating peacebuilding exceptions in the material support prohibition and ensuring integration of peacebuilding in compounding crises—including the global pandemic and climate change.
Shaping new narratives to develop and amplify effective peacebuilding messaging
AfP is implementing its new, evidence-based narrative research in partnership with the Frameworks Institute, Humanity United, PartnersGlobal, and The Horizons Project to ensure that peacebuilding champions and the public use framing strategies that are most effective in increasing understanding of what peacebuilding is and why it matters.