The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination will hold a Crisis Diplomacy lunch seminar on Thursday, October 24, 2013, at 12:00 p.m. in 012 Bendheim Hall. Martine van Bijlert, Co-Director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, will be the featured speaker. Lunch will be served at the session. To attend, RSVP to Angella Matheney.

Martine van Bijlert is co-director and co-founder of the Afghanistan Analysts Network. She grew up in pre-revolutionary Iran (1972-78). As an adult she has since then spent well over a decade working and living in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. She studied Sociology of Non-Western Societies at Leiden University in the Netherlands (1988-94) Her interest in the region was rekindled when she visited Quetta to study the situation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan (1990 and 1992/3). She subsequently worked as Community Development Officer for MEDAIR in Grozny (1995) and Kabul (1997-1998); as an Asylum Officer for the Immigration and Nationalisation Service in the Netherlands (1996-1997 and 1999-2000); as Political Secretary for the Netherlands Embassy in Tehran (2001-2004); as Political Adviser to the EU Special Representative for Afghanistan in Kabul (2004-2008); and since 2008 as an independent analyst on Afghanistan, still largely based in Kabul. In 2009, she co-founded the Afghanistan Analysts Network. van Bijlert has published widely, travelled extensively through Afghanistan, and is fluent in Dari.