John Katunga is the Kroc Institute's 2011 Catholic Relief Services fellow.
Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Katunga is Catholic Relief Services' regional technical advisor for peacebuilding and justice in east Africa. He provides technical guidance and assistance to CRS peacebuilding and justice programs in Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Eritrea.
While at the Kroc Institute, Katunga will conduct research on Catholic peacebuilding, drawing on his professional experiences collaborating with Catholic bishops and other religious leaders in Eastern Africa.
Katunga is former acting director of Nairobi Peace Initiative-Africa. As a senior trainer for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., he provides leadership training for government leaders, military officials, and police in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi. He also teaches peacebuilding and conflict transformation at institutions of higher learning and peacebuilding training institutes in Africa, Europe, and the United States.
Katunga earned a master's degree in conflict transformation from Eastern Mennonite University and master's and bachelor's degrees from the University of Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Kroc Institute and Catholic Relief Services have sponsored the CRS-Kroc fellowships for five years. Past fellows have come from Burundi, El Salvador, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Rwanda. The fellowships allow experienced CRS staff to conduct research in a university setting, while also bringing insights from experienced practitioners to bear on Kroc’s academic programs.
Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic community. The agency provides assistance to people in more than 100 countries.
Contact: Renée LaReau, 574-631-5098, lareau.3@nd.edu