Panel 3: “Local Solutions for Lasting Peace”
Sustainable peace requires more than top-down interventions; it must be rooted in local communities. This panel explores bottom-up approaches to peacebuilding and their coexistence with traditional UN-led missions. It rethinks conventional paradigms by prioritising justice over security, examining how locally driven initiatives can foster lasting stability. Discussions will address the effectiveness of community-led reconciliation, the role of traditional justice systems, and the challenges of integrating local and international efforts.

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Taban Shoresh, Lotus Flower

Taban Shoresh is the Founder and CEO of The Lotus Flower, a non-profit organization that has supported over 60,000 vulnerable conflict survivors, particularly women and children, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. She was awarded an OBE in 2024 for her services to refugees and displaced conflict survivors. Taban, who arrived in the UK as a refugee at the age of six after escaping imprisonment and near-death in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, founded The Lotus Flower in 2016 in response to ISIS attacks on her homeland. Her work focuses on providing humanitarian aid, empowerment, and advocacy for survivors of conflict. Taban's dedication to change and her belief in compassion, empathy, and action have been the driving forces behind her impactful career.

Daniel Tucker, Conciliation Resources

Daniel Tucker is a Project Manager for the West Africa programme at Conciliation Resources, bringing over ten years of experience in designing and managing peacebuilding initiatives in the region. He has led efforts focused on issues such as pastoralist-farmer violence in Nigeria, the Boko Haram insurgency, and the spread of violence by armed groups in the Sahel region. Daniel's work supports locally-driven peace efforts through a variety of methods, including peace leadership, youth resilience building, conflict mediation, and reconciliation. Before joining Conciliation Resources, he worked in Saudi Arabia providing conflict and political risk analysis in the MENA region. Daniel holds a Master’s in Security Studies from University College London and a Bachelor’s in Geography from the University of Oxford.

Professor Levi Gahman, University of Liverpool

Professor Levi Gahman began his career focusing on critical development studies, political geography, and global inequality in the Caribbean and Central America. Now, he collaborates with grassroots movements and organizers fighting for land, dignity, and self-determination in the face of structural violence, environmental conflict, and the lingering impacts of empire. Levi’s work emphasizes research that is rooted in the needs of communities striving for material and spiritual well-being, alternative futures, and autonomy. His approach prioritizes social change through participatory methods, creative arts, co-production, and non-commercial open access. Additionally, he has written on topics such as settler colonialism, masculinity, gun culture, and deaths of despair in the United States.

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Nic Hailey, International Alert

Nic Hailey became Executive Director of International Alert in September 2021. Before this role, he served for 24 years in the UK Diplomatic Service, holding senior positions such as Director-General at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, overseeing the merger of the FCO and DFID. His diplomatic career also included being the UK High Commissioner to Kenya from 2015-2019, Africa Director from 2013-2015, and Deputy Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2012-2013. He has worked in various UK embassies, including in Washington DC, Berlin, and Paris. Nic was educated at a Steiner Waldorf school, Cambridge University, and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration in Paris. He holds both British and French citizenship, is married, and has two teenage children.