General Announcements - July 09, 2009

IPI Announces Three Senior Appointments

IPI is pleased to announce three highly distinguished new hires: Ambassador Adonia Ayebare joins IPI as Acting Director of the Africa program; Peter Gastrow joins as Senior Fellow; and Ambassador Saúl Weisleder joins as a senior Consultant.

Among Ambassador Ayebare's responsibilities will be to carry forward the recently concluded IPI-African Union agreement. Under the agreement, IPI will facilitate the Ten-Year United Nations Program of Action to strengthen the capacity of the AU in the management and resolution of conflicts. This will include an annual IPI-AU conference on topics of mutual concern, including the development of the African Peace and Security Architecture and the African Standby Force.

From 2005-2009 Ambassador Ayebare served as Deputy Permanent Representative of Uganda to the United Nations. Earlier in his career he covered major events in the East African region for several East African magazines and for IRIN, the regional information network for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. He continued his analysis of East African peace and security issues as a consultant and researcher for the International Crisis Group.

After joining the Ugandan Foreign Ministry in 1999, Ambassador Ayebare served as Head of Mission with the rank of ambassador in Rwanda and Burundi from 2002-2005 and subsequently became principal adviser and special envoy for President Yoweri Museveni on the Burundi peace process. As Uganda held the chairmanship of the Burundi peace initiative, he worked closely with South African and Tanzanian mediators, as well as with Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza and his predecessors.

Peter Gastrow joins IPI as part of the Coping with Crisis, Conflict, and Change program. He will focus on multilateral responses to new transnational security threats. Specifically, his research and policy focuses on organized crime and related issues. He is currently engaged in a review of the current international framework for countering organized crime.

Mr. Gastrow comes to IPI from Cape Town, South Africa, where he was the Cape Town Director of the Institute for Security Studies. He has acted as an expert adviser to the South African government and as a member of various expert groups and panels of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Previously, Mr. Gastrow served as a member of the South African parliament and participated in the establishment of the National Peace Accord in 1991. He thereafter served as a member of the National Peace Committee and of the National Peace Secretariat, which was charged with the implementation of the peace accord. In December 1993, he was appointed chairperson of the Law and Order Sub-Council, which formed part of South Africa's transitional government structures. After the April 1994 election, Peter was appointed as special adviser to South Africa's Minister for Safety and Security with the main focus on police transformation.

Ambassador Saúl Weisleder joins IPI on a full-time consulting basis to conduct research on global peace and security issues in Latin America and on the UN's involvement there. He will be exploring the possibility of a long-term project on Latin America at IPI focusing on security, socioeconomic issues, and the medium- and long-term implications of the current global economic crisis.

Until the end of January 2009 Ambassador Weisleder was Deputy Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN. Previously, he was the chairman of the economics department and Dean of the School of Social Sciences. He was a member of the Costa Rican legislature from 1994 to 1998, serving as President of the Legislative Assembly during his final year.