Aude Darnal

Guest Author

Aude Darnal (@audedarnal) is an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s New American Engagement Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. The initiative aims to critically examine the core assumptions of U.S. grand strategy and propose fresh, innovative ideas for U.S. foreign policy. Ms. Darnal’s work focuses on the critical analysis and understanding of armed conflicts and of the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. She also has interest in the development of the Caribbean region, where she is from.

Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Ms. Darnal worked as a mobile safety advisor for the Lake Chad Basin at the International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO). She worked in North-Eastern Nigeria and Extreme-North Cameroon, gathering data and performing empirical analysis on organized armed groups, as well as providing support for security related issues and access to humanitarian NGOs. She previously worked in Guinea as Search For Common Ground’s program associate and was responsible for program development, advocacy, and external relations with donors and institutional partners. She has worked on a wide range of issues related to electoral violence, women and youth empowerment, and civil society. She also has experience in strategic communication and project management thanks to her work in NGOs, think tanks and IOs in Senegal and in the US.

Ms. Darnal holds a Master of Science in Conflict Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and International Law from the University of Quebec in Montreal.