Nuala Lawlor

Bio

Nuala is a foreign service officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT). She recently completed a two-year assignment as a senior political officer at the Embassy of Canada in Sudan, where she was responsible for reporting on security issues, human rights, the humanitarian situation throughout Sudan and the ongoing conflict in Darfur. Nuala also represented Canada at the Darfur Peace Talks held in Abuja, Nigeria, contributing to the development of the Darfur Peace Agreement. Prior to Sudan, Nuala completed a two-year assignment at the Embassy of Canada in Venezuela.

Following a six-month internship with the Organization of American States in 1999, Nuala spent her initial years at DFAIT working with the Inter-American Division on the Plan of Action for the 2001 Summit of the Americas. For her work on this initiative, Nuala was part of the foreign policy team that received the Government of Canada Public Service Merit Award as well as the Minister’s Award for Foreign Policy Excellence.

Originally from Saskatoon, Nuala holds a BA in English and Spanish Literature from the University of Saskatchewan and a MA in Communications from McGill University. She also holds a Spanish language diploma from the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain. In addition to English, Nuala speaks French and Spanish. She is currently living in Accra, Ghana, with her husband and new baby daughter.

Issue of Investigation

As a 2008 Gordon Global Fellowship recipient, Nuala will examine how a gender perspective has been incorporated into the training and capacity-building programs developed to address conflict resolution and peace support operations at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAPTC) in Accra, Ghana. Policy on gender and conflict resolution is critical to Canada’s engagement in Africa and Nuala will also examine Canadian support to these programs and progress towards fulfilling UN resolution 1325 to improve mainstreaming of gender perspectives in peace operations.