I grew up in Germany, live in the US, and work globally. Over the years, I have worked in Africa, the Middle East, Asia (South, South East, and Central Asia), Latin America, Europe, and the US in short-term and longer-term assignments and/or repeat engagements. I have regional experience in (in alphabetical order) Armenia, Barbados, Bolivia, Burundi, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of Congo, East-Timor, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Israel, Kenya, India, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Mali, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, the Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Ukraine. I work in English, Spanish, and German. I travel frequently and have led and facilitated numerous engagements with international and multicultural teams – in person, virtually, and hybrid formats.
“CRS was looking for support to develop an organizational approach to preventing/countering violent extremism (P/CVE), which has increasingly supplanted more reflective approaches to peacebuilding in the public donor-funded programming landscape. As lead researcher, Anita Ernstorfer brought considerable depth and breadth of understanding to this topic, which allowed us to a get a running start on the research and to maintain a clear focus within a P/CVE field where claims of effectiveness remain largely unsupported by evidence. Her approach was equally rigorous, methodologically sound and flexible enough to include a variety of lines of inquiry. She was also highly respectful and affirming of our stated desire to explore how to approach P/CVE programming in a way that aligned with our organizational values and principles. Based on the report and recommendations produced, we are now able to situate ourselves in the P/CVE landscape from a well-informed, evidence-based, principled perspective. We are using the final product to guide our decision-making about related programming opportunities.”
Aaron Chassy, Technical Director for the Equity, Inclusion and Peacebuilding (EQUIP) team and Nell Bolton, Senior Technical Advisor for Justice & Peacebuilding at Catholic Relief Services (CRS)