Marc Sommers is an internationally recognized youth, gender, development, conflict, countering violent extremism (CVE), peacebuilding, inclusion, education and refugee expert, and an award-winning author. He has provided strategic advice and carried out research, assessment and evaluation work for donor and UN agencies, NGOs, and policy institutes in 22 war-affected countries. He is a member of the UN Advisory Group of Experts for the Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security (UNSCR 2250).
Marc’s eighth book, The Outcast Majority: War, Development, and Youth in Africa, received the 2017 Jackie Kirk Award and Honorable Mention for the 2016 Senior Book Prize. He also received Honorable Mention for the 2013 Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize for Stuck: Rwandan Youth and the Struggle for Adulthood, and the 2003 Margaret Mead Award for Fear in Bongoland: Burundi Refugees in Urban Tanzania.
Marc just completed work in Djibouti as Senior Research Advisor for the IGAD Center of Excellence in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (seconded by the State Dept.). IGAD will publish the book he wrote there (his ninth), which is a manual on trust-based, qualitative methods for researching violent extremism. Promundo will publish his new report on youth and CVE later this year. Prior to that assignment, Marc worked as a Senior Conflict Advisor with the U.S. Department of State (2015-2017), where he provided analysis and peacebuilding advice for Burundi, DRC, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Mozambique, South Sudan, youth issues, CVE, atrocities prevention, and DDR.
Marc taught for many years at The Fletcher School and was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Based in Washington, DC, he currently is consulting for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) as a Social Inclusion Expert. He is helping MCC develop its guidance and strategy on social inclusion.