Participants
Marc Sommers
Associate Research Professor of Humanitarian Studies
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Marc Sommers is an Associate Research Professor of Humanitarian Studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University and a Research Fellow at Boston University’s African Studies Center.
Across 20 war-affected countries over the past 18 years, Dr. Sommers has researched and written extensively on children and youth, child soldiering, education in emergencies, conflict negotiation, forced migrants, urbanization, human rights and coordination issues in humanitarian and post-war reconstruction contexts. He has worked for policy institutes and numerous donor, UN and non-governmental agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense, UNESCO, UNHCR, CARE, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, and has received research support from the Ford, Guggenheim, Mellon and Rotary foundations.
Dr. Sommers has written two books on humanitarian coordination: The Dynamics of Coordination ((2000), and Co-ordinating Education during Emergencies and Reconstruction (2004). In both works, he addressed challenges arising from corruption and trust issues between national and international institutions. He is currently carrying out research on youth and conflict in Central Africa for the World Bank and the influence of terror war tactics, child soldiering and popular culture in Sierra Leone. His book, Fear in Bongoland: Burundi Refugees in Urban Tanzania (Berghahn, 2001), received the 2003 Margaret Mead Award.
