Scott Smith
Is the Afghan Peace Process Dead Already?
Conference Call
March 23, 2020 | 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Scott Smith
Scott Seward Smith is a Senior Expert on Afghanistan at the United States Institute for Peace. Between 2017 and 2019 he was based in Kabul, Afghanistan, as the Director of Political Affairs for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
Mr. Smith has worked on Afghanistan for almost 25 years, beginning with humanitarian work in Kabul in the mid-1990s. From 1998 to 2011 he was a Political Affairs Officer with the United Nations, which included work on decolonization (1998-1999), senior political officer in the UN mission to Bougainville (2000), desk officer for Afghanistan in both the Departments of Political Affairs (2001-2003) and the Department of Peacekeeping (2007-2009), desk officer for Afghanistan at the Electoral Assistance Division (2003-2004), Special Assistant to the Special Representative based in Kabul (2009-2010). Mr. Smith resigned from the United Nations in 2011 and was the Director for Afghanistan and Central Asia Programs at the United States Institute of Peace (2012-2016). Mr. Smith was selected as one of eight members of the United Nations Standby Mediation team in 2016-2017, and subsequently re-joined UNAMA as political affairs director.
Mr. Smith is the author of Afghanistan’s Troubled Transition: Peacekeeping, Politics, and the 2004 Presidential Election (Lynne Rienner, 2011), co-editor of Getting it Right in Afghanistan (USIP Press, 2013), and the author of numerous articles on Afghanistan. He was an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs between 2011 and 2013 and has taught undergraduate courses at Boston University’s Washington D.C. campus on democratization (2014-215) and conflict resolution (2019).
Mr. Smith earned a Masters Degree from Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs (1998) and a Bachelors in Science from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service (1991).
Mr. Smith speaks English, French, Spanish, and basic Dari.
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