Gifty Mensah

Gifty Mensah is the Head of Programmes at ABIC in Monrovia, Liberia. Her special focus is on mobilising, engaging and training violent disrupters (gang youths) to transition from perpetrators of violence to peace initiators in their communities. This mechanism serves as her special entry point in coordinating the active cooperation of at risk youth in ABIC's "Women's Situation Rooms" during elections in African countries, in line with UN Security Council Resolutions 2250 and 2419. She coordinated the first ever ‘Youth Gang Summit for Peaceful Elections’ in Ghana 2016 with support from the African Women Development Fund (AWDF); and the first ‘Gang Peace March’ in Liberia in 2017.

She is currently working with gangs within the Montserrado County in Liberia on organised crime and gang violence with sponsorship from the Resilience Fund of the GI-TOC. As an initiator, she has become the First and Only convener of Liberia's "Slum Pitch Festival", which is committed to train at risk youth in entrepreneurship and provide seed feed for startups of social enterprises. She has also been training community youth leaders and young social entrepreneurs for peace, "Peacepreneurs", in an "Imp!act" for peace project in Liberian's rural communities with UNITAR. She is also the ABIC Academic Advisor with The Graduate Institute, Geneva, working with researchers in analysing the levers of change and interactions between youth, security, economic empowerment and sustainable peace in Africa.

Her interests are in Women, Youth, Peace and Security; Women's Political Leadership; Gendering Pathways to Drug Dependence; Transnational Organised Crime and Violence. She holds an MSc in Gender and International Relations from the University of Bristol, UK. She works with at risk youth in Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Nigeria.