Joakim Ojendal
Professor
University of Gothenburg
Dr Joakim Ojendal has a BA in International Relations and received his PhD in Peace and Development Research. He has extensive experience in international issues of both research and policy nature. Asia has been his primary geographical interest.
He works with “peacebuilding” and “post-conflict reconstruction” after deep-seated violence, genocide and/or civil war. Related to this interest, He also engages in issues of democratization with a special interest in local governance, decentralization, and local democracy. He also works actively with the political economy of natural resource management, especially transboundary water management. He has worked most extensively in Cambodia, but also in many other parts of Asia, and, increasingly, the Global South. For his interest in resource issues, the greater Mekong Basin (spanning from Northwest China to Southern Vietnam) has been his primary focus.
Current research he currently works on a book project named "The Imperative of Good Local Governance: Challenges for the Next Decade of Decentralization” med ICLD och UNU Press (Tokyo). He leads a multidisciplinary research project extending over several Universities, labelled "Precarious peacebuilding”. He is a partner in a research project named ”Global climate change and transboundary water management,” which involves several researchers and universities/institutes. He is also pursuing a, as of yet unfunded, research project tentatively named “Taking it to the Ground - Peacebuilding through a Local Government Approach”, which may start up more fully by 2013.
He has supervised six PhD candidates, and a number of Master's degree students every year.
