About Us.
Strategic Stabilization Advisors (SSA) is a leading data-driven advisory that provides critical guidance to organizations operating in hard-to-reach and challenging operational environments affected by instability and conflict. SSA draws from our team’s decades of collective experience in leading P/CVE, counterterrorism and stabilization initiatives. Drawing on lessons learned, we approach conflict dynamics differently. Our mission is to provide clients with informed strategies based on ‘groundtruth’ - driven by rigorous data analysis and in-depth research - and coupled with our thematic and regional expertise.
Our Story
SSA fills a critical gap experienced by our team while working in the field. SSA’s director Aneliese Bernard had first-hand experience of the organizational barriers to effective cooperation with local partners faced with managing a stabilization and counterinsurgency response across the Lake Chad Basin and Sahel. After leaving government, Aneliese set up SSA with Mark van Embden Andres, in an effort to bridge the gap - both in terms of advisory and practice - that exists between increasing capacity for indigenous security institutions and community engagement.
Our Partnerships
Strategic Stabilization Advisors forms a consultancy consortium with Elva Community Engagement, an NGO specializing in informing and implementing conflict prevention, social cohesion and community engagement programing in conflict-affected areas. The Elva team created SSA in 2021 to expand expertise and skills to other markets and clients active in unstable environments. Elva and SSA are co-located in our offices in The Hague, Washington D.C. and Abidjan, with combined programmatic reach across West and Central Africa, the Caucuses and Eastern Europe.
We work with local partners who know the local context, because they are immersed in it. Our consortium of local and regional consultants is comprised of leaders in their research and programmatic fields. Collaboration through consortium allows us to address the most pressing challenges in conflict-affected environments. Our collective expertise and experience rooted at the local level is what sets us apart from other business intelligence firms and NGOs working on stabilization.
