Azeema Cheema

Azeema Cheema is a Founding Director at Verso Consulting where she leads the portfolio on Conflict, Fragility and Violence. Azeema has fifteen years of development sector experience. In addition to long-term positions with ADB and IRI, she has consulted for a range of multilateral, bilateral, and civil society organizations. She specializes in applied political economy and conflict sensitivity for complex programs. As a co-creator of the Mass Anxieties Project Azeema focuses on the discourse of violence and non-violence in social movements and developing communications frameworks to assist peace building. She has previously served as a Visiting Faculty member in public policy at the National Defence University and presently at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.

Azeema is a Research Lead for XCEPT, and currently leads research in Pakistan under the X-Border Local Research Network on fragility in local market systems and conflict dynamics  in borderland communities along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.