Zahbia Yousuf is Senior Project Manager on our Criminal Justice programme at Maslaha. 

Before joining Maslaha she worked in the field of international development for over 15 years, and most recently as Senior Research Advisor for Saferworld focused on security and justice. She has experience of establishing cross-organisational research strategies and pioneering participatory action research methodologies, as well as developing guidance and mechanisms for quality assurance, ethics, risk management, and safeguarding. She has supported community-led programming and research to bridge knowledge gaps between practice and policy.

She has also been a teaching fellow at SOAS and completed a PhD on comparative peace processes in Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine and Kashmir, conducting fieldwork using community-based, focus group research; semi-structured interviews with political leaders, former prisoners, negotiators, civil society and academics.

She has written widely on community approaches to peacebuilding including on gender violence and peace, and the role of women in peace-building including in Somalia, Colombia and Bangladesh.