Advisory

Jessica Banfield has wide-ranging experience in providing advice to clients related to the conflict and gender sensitivity of their interventions in fragile and conflict-affected and/or developing settings. She is currently working with UNDP in North West Nigeria supporting development of a Peace, Security and Development Framework for the region, and with the UN Resident Coordinator and OCHA in Pakistan on advancing effectiveness in climate disaster resilience building. During 2024 she supported the Prishtina Institute for Political Studies to design a new Organisational Strategy, and in 2023 she worked with the Principles for Peace Foundation with a number of initiatives.

Previously, Jessica supported Interpeace to bring gender and peace responsiveness into a coherent frame that is practically workable for UN agency practitioners seeking to deepen gender and peace integration in the context of Sustaining Peace and the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus – and measure it. In 2021 she was deployed as a conflict advisor supporting the British Embassy Tbilisi in thinking through conflict sensitivity risks and opportunities in relation to interventions; and have previously conducted reviews of CSSF programming in different locations. She supported UNDP in Ukraine with strategic elevation of social cohesion as part of the country programme, and while based with UNDP in Istanbul worked with different country offices on conflict sensitivity initiatives. As Director of Programmes at International Alert, Jessica supported ongoing delivery of conflict-sensitivity support to government partners. She also co-convened an organisational gender-sensitivity review that examined both the organisation’s gender and peacebuilding programming approaches and impact, as well as its own operational performance in relation to gender.