Senior researcher Wenche Iren Hauge holds a PhD in Political Science. Her academic fields of expertise are Causes and Dynamics of Armed Conflict, Peace Processes and Peacebuilding. She has broad comparative experience from case studies globally and has conducted fieldwork and in-depth interviews with key actors in conflict contexts from several countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia including with military leaders, guerrilla commanders, rank and file members of armed groups, national and local politicians, UN personnel and leaders of NGOs. Her most recent project focused on borders as catalysts of armed conflict and included a case study of the border between Venezuela and Colombia.

Hauge has a strong gender profile in her work and has led several projects on the gender dimension of DDR processes in Guatemala, Colombia and Nepal, including a project focusing on the gender dimension of minors in the DDR processes in Colombia and Nepal. During the projects she conducted interviews with female and male ex-combatants in these countries.

Hauge has also conducted several reviews and evaluations of peace processes and peacebuilding activities.  She participated in the Utstein evaluation of four European countries’ peacebuilding strategies in 2004, and in 2006 she evaluated one of UNICEFs peacebuilding projects in Casamance, Senegal. She has furthermore conducted three reviews of Norway’s role in the peace process in Colombia for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 2013, 2015 and 2017. In 1998 She also conducted an evaluation of Norway’s role in the Guatemalan peace process for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Languages spoken: Norwegian, English, Spanish, French and basic German