Dr. Irene Dawa Peace is a Ugandan scholar, feminist humanitarian practitioner, and Founder of Community Empowerment for Peace and Development (CEPAD). With over 15 years of experience across Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, she specialises in gender equality, localisation, and conflict-sensitive humanitarian programming. Her work focuses on advancing gender justice and shifting power to local actors, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected settings. She has held senior advisory roles with UN Women in Yemen, Sierra Leone, and South Africa, and previously worked with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), IPPF, NRC, and GIZ, leading programmes on gender-based violence prevention, safeguarding, and peacebuilding.

Dr. Dawa holds a PhD in Management Science (Peace and Conflict Studies) from the Durban University of Technology, where her research explored the role of South Sudanese refugee and Ugandan women in peace and conflict transformation. She has published widely on gender, displacement, and humanitarian policy, including contributions to the Encyclopaedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict. At AidEx, she brings practical insights on locally led funding models, feminist humanitarian action, and what it takes to move localisation from commitment to reality.