International policy & practice

On several occasions, I have directly influenced international architecture on conflict. Working closely with UN officials, allied governments and civil society networks, I played a significant role in creating the evidence base, design and indicator options and supporting the diplomacy that led to the successful adoption of Sustainable Development Goal 16 on peaceful, just and inclusive societies. This included extensive outreach to reassure sceptical powers of the value of integrating peace commitments into the world’s primary development framework. My advocacy work has also helped shape the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States, the Busan Partnership on Effective Development Cooperation, as well as Security Council resolutions. I have also regularly advised the UK, Sweden, the UN, NGOs, foundations and other governments/agencies on conflict prevention and influenced their and others’ peace and security-related policies, guidelines, strategies and programmes on numerous occasions.

Past assignments include:

• Paths out of the polycrisis - 7-part podcast series for Rethinking Security on UK responses to global security challenges (Feb-June 2024)

• Practice guide: (forthcoming) 'Towards principled peacemaking: a playbook for security actors,' Principles for Peace foundation

• 'Ready for the storm? Labour's Foreign and Security Thinking,' Labour Foreign Policy Group, Rethinking Security (September 2023)

• Academic outreach for the Rethinking Security network -- building a group of experts and academics to grow conversations on UK domestic and international security (Nov 2022 - to present)

• Teaching modules on weapons management and community security and assessing participants on an advanced course on reintegration of excombatants (Barcelona, July 2022 & July 2023)

• Report for Transition International: ‘Final Report Mid-Term Review: Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law,’ (May, 2023)

• Podcast guest: 'Episode 2: How Conflict Environments Complicate Countering Violent Extremism,' with Dr Jessica White, Raffaello Pantucci and Christory Hockey, RUSI's Decoding Counterterrorism (27 Feb 2023)

• Article: ‘Russia’s Mobilisation and the Ghosts of 1914,’ Rethinking Security (7 November 2022)

• Podcast guest: ‘New perspectives on stabilisation,’ with Rachel Kleinfeld, Andrei Gomez-Suarez, Warpod (29 June 2022)

• Led and co-authored two strands of research for the FCDO-funded project ‘Stabilisation and resilience strategies: what works to address threats posed by violent criminal or proscribed groups?’ (2021-22)

• Report with Abigail Watson: ‘How guns fall silent: Analysing examples of relative success in integrated stabilisation,’ (Saferworld/FCDO funded, May 2022)

• Report with Jordan Street: ‘No shortcuts to security: learning from responses to armed conflicts involving proscribed groups,’ (Saferworld/FCDO funded, May 2022)

• Provided strategic and operational advice to the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency in response to requests to the Saferworld, Bradford University and Stockholm Policy Group helpdesks on peace, human rights, rule of law and conflict sensitivity, including authoring a number of written reports from 2010 onwards

• Podcast series - researched, scripted, cohosted and produced: Reckoning with 9/11, 8-part special series of Saferworld’s Warpod, September-November 2021, with Pulitzer-prize winning journalists and experts from affected countries

• Led Saferworld’s 2013, 2016 & 2020 External Environment Reviews and helped shape its 2014-17,2017-21 and 2021-25 Strategic plans and policy/advocacy strategies

• Podcast guest: ‘Challenges facing international peace and stability,’ Warpod (19 Feb 2021)

• Led Saferworld’s research and advocacy on peace and rights-based responses to crises and threats from 2014 to 2021 – looking at counter-terror, Countering/Preventing Violent Extremism (C/PVE), stabilisation, statebuilding and counter-migration policies and approaches

• Developed a global civil society Security Policy Alternatives Network from 2017 to promote peace, human rights and civic space within international security interventions, comprised of over 100 civil society organisations and experts, leading to multiple collaborative research and advocacy initiatives

• ‘Biden’s Global Priority No. 1: Turn the Authoritarian Tide,’ (Just Security, 8 Dec 2020)

• Article with Jordan Street: ‘Incompatible Bedfellows: UN Peace Operations and Counterterrorism,’ IPI Global Observatory, Sept 2020

• Article with Jordan Street: ‘Redefining a UN peace doctrine to avoid regime protection operations,’ (Saferworld/UN DPO think piece paper, 2020)

• Project managed and edited, report by Jordan Street & Ali Altiok: ‘A fourth pillar for the United Nations? The rise of counter-terrorism,’ (Saferworld, June 2020)

• Attree L & Street J, ‘Why U.N. Peacekeeping Operations Must Not Become Counterterrorism Missions,’ World Politics Review (Sept 2018)

• Attree L, Street J, ‘U.N. Peace Operations Should Get Off the Counter-Terror Bandwagon,’ Just Security (Sept 2018)

• Attree L, Street J & Venchiarutti L, ‘UN peace operations in complex environments: charting the right course,’ Saferworld (2018)

• Member of the International Development Taskforce advising the UK Shadow Development Secretary on Labour’s 2018 green paper: ‘A World for the Many Not the Few: the Labour Party’s Vision for International Development,’ (Labour, 2018)

• Attree L, ‘Counter-terrorism: new UK strategy must learn obvious lessons,' (Open Democracy, 2018)

• Article: ‘Five challenges the UN’s “sustaining peace” agenda needs to address,’ (Saferworld, 2018)

• Advisory inputs provided into Thematic Overview by Sida: 'Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) through development,' (Sida, 2017)

• Long-read article: ‘Shouldn’t YOU be Countering Violent Extremism,’ (Saferworld, 2017)

• Article with Farea Al-Muslimi: ‘US Counterterror Strategy Has Crashed and Burned,’ (Lobelog, 2016)

• Article: ‘You can’t bomb your way to peace,’ (Open Society Foundations, 2016)

• Policy brief with Sunil Suri: ‘A new war on terror or a new search for peace: lessons from Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen,’ (Saferworld, 2016)

• Policy brief: ‘What lessons should be learnt from 15 years of counter-terror and stabilisation?’ (Saferworld, 2016)

• Article: ‘Will the SDSR be strategic enough about conflict prevention?’ (Saferworld, 2015)

• Article: ‘The UK and extremism: understanding the problem and owning our values,’ (Saferworld, 2015)

• Report with David Keen: ‘Dilemmas of counterterror, stabilisation and statebuilding,’ (Saferworld, 2015)

• From 2010-2015, led Saferworld's research and advocacy efforts to ensure development focused more on conflict prevention and peacebuilding, including successfully advocating for inclusion of SDG16+ commitments to peace, justice and governance in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, influencing the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States and the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation and a number of direct impacts on the policies of national governments, political parties, NGOs and international agencies

• Article with Anna Möller-Loswick: ‘Goal 16: Ensuring Peace in the Post-2015 Framework: Adoption, Implementation and Monitoring,’ UN Chronicle, (Vol.LI No.4, 2015)

• Policy brief with David Keen: ‘Envisaging More Constructive Alternatives To The Counter-Terror Paradigm,’ (Saferworld, 2015)

• Speech to world leaders on the adoption of SDG16: ‘Mr Larry Attree, Saferworld,’ at UN Sustainable Development Summit, 2015

• Report chapter with David Keen: ‘Envisaging More Constructive Alternatives To The Counter-Terror Paradigm,’ in Institute for Economics & Peace, Global Terrorism Index 2014: measuring and understanding the impact of terrorism, (IEP, 2014)

• Policy brief with Sunil Suri, Anna Moeller Loswick, Thomas Wheeler and Ivan Campbell: ‘From the Sustainable Development Goals to the Post-2015 Development Framework: Building a Consensus for Peace,’ (Saferworld, 2014)

• Practice guide with Will Bennett, Rob Parker et al.: ‘Community Security Handbook,’ (Saferworld, 2014)

• Report with Tim Midgley, Ivan Briscoe et al: ‘Identifying approaches and measuring impacts of programmes focused on Transnational Organised Crime,’ (Saferworld/Small Arms Survey for DFID, 2014)

• Report with Tim Midgley, Thomas Wheeler et al.: ‘Defining and measuring the external stress factors that lead to conflict in the context of the post-2015 agenda,’ (Saferworld/CDA for DFID, 2014)

• Article: ‘The whole shebang? Why achieving development and security means working on governance,’ (ODI - post-2015.org & Saferworld comment, September 2013)

• Article with Sunil Suri: ‘A South African agenda for the post-2015 framework?’ (Saferworld comment, September 2013)

• Article: ‘An Integrated Vision for Peace and Development? Building on the High Level Panel's Report,’ Journal of Peacebuilding and Development (Vol 8, No 2, 2013)

• Article: ‘From the High Level Panel report to an accountability framework,’ (Saferworld briefing, June 2013)

• Article: ‘High Level Panel report represents a transformative shift towards peace,’ (Saferworld comment, May 2013)

• Article: ‘Will the High Level Panel answer the world’s call for a progressive post-2015 framework?’ (Saferworld comment, April 2013)

• Policy brief with Hannah Wright: ‘Addressing conflict and violence from 2015: A Vision of Goals, Targets and Indicators,’ (Saferworld, February 2013) 

• Report with Henk-Jan Brinkman & Sasa Hezir: ‘Addressing horizontal inequalities as drivers of conflict in the post-2015 development agenda,’ (Saferworld/UN PBSO, February 2013)

• Policy brief with Erin McCandless, Diana Chigas, James Cox et al: ‘Joint submission to consultation on shared indicators,’ (CSO Platform for Peacebuilding & Statebuilding, January 2013)

• Policy brief with Shelagh Daley: ‘UN High Level Panel framing questions,’ (Saferworld submission, January 2013)

• Policy brief with Sara Skinner: ‘Addressing conflict and violence from 2015 - Issue Paper 1: The impact of conflict and violence on achieving development,’ (Saferworld, November 2012)

• Policy brief: ‘Addressing conflict and violence from 2015 - Issue Paper 2: What are the key challenges? What works in addressing them?’ (Saferworld, November 2012)

• Policy brief with Ivan Campbell, Rob Muggah, Dan Large & Thomas Wheeler: ‘Addressing conflict and violence from 2015 - Issue Paper 3: Rising powers and conflict,’ (Saferworld, November 2012)

• Policy brief: Global CSO Joint Statement, ‘Bringing peace into the post-2015 development framework,’ (September 2012)

• Policy brief with Hannah Wright & Simon Gray: ‘Approaching post-2015 from a peace perspective,’ (Saferworld briefing, September 2012)

• Article: ‘Post-2015: treading the path to peace,’ (Saferworld blog, August 2012)

• Coordinated civil society inputs into meetings of the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding with a focus on conflict sensitivity, inclusion and accountability in donor-state-society relationships, and helped establish the CSO Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding

• Policy brief with Erin McCandless et al.: ‘Fulfilling New Deal commitments: Recommendations from civil society on maximising peacebuilding results,’ (CSO Platform for Peacebuilding & Statebuilding, August 2012)

• Provided evaluation of and training on conflict sensitivity at strategic and project level to aid agencies and governments (including Oxfam, EC, PACT, Netherlands & Sweden)

• Policy brief with BOND et al, ‘Aid effectiveness in contexts of poor governance, conflict and fragility: A statement by UK relief, development and peacebuilding agencies ahead of Busan,’ (UK Development NGOs’ joint statement, September 2011)

• Policy brief with Ivan Campbell & Katrina Aitken: ‘A big step forward – a long path ahead: Saferworld response to the World Development Report 2011,’ (Saferworld, May 2011)

• Policy brief with Duncan Hiscock: ‘What hope for development without peace? Rethinking budget support to promote peace and EU values,’ (Saferworld, January 2011)

• Policy brief with Duncan Hiscock: ‘No peace, no security, no justice – no long-term impact: Saferworld contribution to the consultation on the EU Green Paper: EU development policy in support of inclusive growth and sustainable development – Increasing the impact of EU development policy,’ (Saferworld, January 2011)

• Supported country level efforts to research and consult on small arms and armed violence and develop national response strategies, and developed international small arms survey standards drawing on this

• Practice guide: UN CASA, 'International SALW Control Standards Module 05.10 - SALW Surveys’

• Article with Irma Specht: ‘The reintegration of teenage girls and young women,’ Intervention (2006), Volume 4, Number 3, pp 219-228

• Report with Yvonne Kemper & Irma Specht: ‘Children and Armed Conflict: the Response of the EU,’ (Transition International paper for UNIDIR project: European Action on Small Arms, Light Weapons and Explosive Remnants of War)