World Affairs Council of Greater Reading

October 22 | Inspired: Stories of Triumph and Tragedy from the Congo With Sasha Lezhnev

Sasha Lezhnev is Deputy Director of Policy at The Sentry, where he focuses on conflict, governance, corruption, and corporate accountability issues in central Africa. He is also Founding Director of the Grassroots Reconciliation Group, an organization that works to reintegrate former child soldiers and refugees in northern Uganda. Sasha is a founding member of the Public-Private Alliance on Responsible Minerals Trade (PPA). He previously worked at Global Witness, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace on U.S. policy and conflict resources, extractive industries transparency, and peace processes in Africa. He was based in Uganda for 2 1/2 years as Senior Program Officer with the Northern Uganda Peace Initiative and advisor to the chief mediator of the peace process with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

He is the author of the book Crafting Peace: Strategies to Deal with Warlords in Collapsing States. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Relations from Cambridge University and a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.