Oli Brown

Oli Brown has been working at the nexus of security, natural resources and climate change for the past 17 years, with a particular interest in peacebuilding, conflict mediation, natural resource management, environmental politics and trade policy.

Currently he is an Associate Fellow with Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) and also the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, where he regularly teaches courses on non-traditional threats to security. He is also a member of the Climate and Security Expert Network run by the German think-tank adelphi, is a strategic advisor to IMPACC – a social enterprise incubator seeking to create green jobs for people in the Global South, and serves as a trustee for the Conflict and Environment Observatory – a British NGO drawing attention to environmental damage during conflict.

Oli has extensive experience working for the United Nations. Between 2014 and 2018 he was based in Kenya where he coordinated UN Environment Programme’s work to minimise the risks and impacts of disasters, industrial accidents and armed conflicts. From 2010 to 2012 Oli managed an UN Environment (UNEP) country programme in Sierra Leone. Prior to this, Oli was a senior researcher with the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

Oli has degrees in Anthropology and History from the University of Glasgow, a Masters of International Studies from the University of Otago in New Zealand, and a Masters of Environmental Science from the School of African and Oriental Studies, London. Oli is based in the French Alps with his wife and two daughters.

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