Expertise

Peacebuilding; conflict; reconciliation; memory; in/security; transitional justice

At the Keough School

Josefina Echavarría Alvarez is associate professor of the practice in the Keough School of Global Affair sat the University of Notre Dame. She is director of the Peace Accords Matrix, a research initiative of the Keough School’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Echavarría Alvarez also is a faculty fellow of the Keough School’s Pulte Institute for Global Development.

Courses

• Truth Commissions: Conceptual Foundations and Case Studies (elective for undergraduate and master of global affairs students)
• Policy Lab: From Colombia to Global Peacemaking

Research and Biography

As the director of the Peace Accords Matrix, Echavarría Alvarez leads the Barometer Initiative in Colombia, which carries out official monitoring of implementation of the 2016 Final Agreement between the government and the former FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army). She also directs the Legacy Project for “Preserving and Engaging the Digital Archive of the Colombian Truth Commission,” which guarantees continued access to more than 200,000 files including audiovisual, non-textual knowledge and digitized documents compiled by the Colombian Truth Commission about the country’s fifty-two-year armed conflict to advance transitional justice, human rights, and the centrality of victims.

Echavarría Alvarez was previously co-director of the Research Center for Peace and Conflict at the University of Innsbruck and a Fellow at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and Trinity College (Ireland). She has been a guest lecturer at numerous universities around the world on peacebuilding, peace education, gender, conflict analysis, and research methods. She has also managed diverse international cooperation projects in the fields of gender, citizenship, and curricular development for peace and conflict studiess. She holds a PhD in peace, conflict, and democracy from the Jaume I University (Spain), an MA in peace, development, security and international conflict transformation from the University of Innsbruck (Austria), and a BA in government and international Relations from the University Externado (Colombia).

Recent Work

• Editor-in-chief, Peace Accords Matrix policy briefs
• Barometer Initiative reports in English
• Barometer Initiative reports in Spanish
• Encyclopedia entry: Josefina Echavarría Alvarez and Jason Quinn. (2020) “Peace Agreements.” In: Richmond O., Visoka G. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
• Encyclopedia entry: Josefina Echavarría Alvarez, Elise Ditta, Juanita Esguerra-Rezk, Patrick McQuestion. (2020) “Colombian Peace Agreement 2016.” In: Richmond O., Visoka G. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
• Research brief: Elise Ditta, Josefina Echavarría Alvarez, Patrick McQuestion, and Madhav Joshi. November 2020, “Women, Peace and Security: Understanding the Implementation of Gender Stipulations in Peace Agreements,” Joint Brief Series: New Insights on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) for the Next Decade, Stockholm: Folke Bernadotte Academy, PRIO and UN Women. (Co-authored with Elise Ditta and Patrick McQuestion)
• Report: Madhav Joshi, Louise Olsson, Rebecca Gindele, Josefina Echavarría Alvarez, Elise Ditta and Patrick McQuestion. November 2020, “Women, peace and security: understanding the implementation of gender provisions in the peace agreements, Series of memoirs in the appendix: New perspectives on women, peace and security (WPS) for the next decade, Stockholm: Folke Bernadotte Academy, PRIO and UN Women (in French).

News

• Rigorous research supporting sustainable peace (ND Women Lead)