Liv Tørres is the director of the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, hosted by the Center on International Cooperation at New York University. Pathfinders is a group of UN member states, international organizations, global partnerships, civil society, and the private sector working to accelerate the delivery of the SDG targets for peace, justice and inclusion (SDG16+).
Tørres has worked on international humanitarian, peace, and development issues, as both a scholar and practitioner, for three decades. Before joining Pathfinders, she was the Executive Director of the Nobel Peace Center. She previously served as the Secretary General of Norwegian People’s Aid, a humanitarian, development, and disarmament organization operating in over 40 countries, after several years of leading its International Department. She was also a political advisor for Norway’s Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion, a member of the Labour Party International Committee, and manager of the first National Labour Force Survey in the South Africa.
Her academic experience includes positions as senior advisor leading development research at the Research Council of Norway, and associate professor at the University of Oslo. In the 1990s, she established and managed Fafo South Africa, an international policy research center, where she later served as Research Director. More recently, she is, since 2017, a visiting professor at Wits University in Johannesburg.
Tørres holds a PhD in political science from the University of Oslo. She is an active commentator whose expertise is in demand on fields including peacebuilding, conflict resolution, justice and equality, inclusive societies, development policy, and democratization.
