Marie-Rose Tshite

Marie-Rose Tshite is a peacebuilding advocate and a Ph.D. student in Political Science with a concentration in Feminist Comparative and International Politics at the University of Cincinnati. She has over a decade of experience working on issues related to women, youth civic-political participation, and democracy or various local and international institutions such as NDI, Freedom House, and the United Nations Information Center. Marie-Rose is a Fulbrighter, a Young African Leaders Initiatives (YALI) alumnae and a member of the African Women Leaders Network (AWLN) DRC Youth Caucus. She is also the co-founder of the Congolese Youth Peace and Security (YPS) Coalition and has served as the country coordinator at the National Technical Secretariat of the Youth, Peace, and Security agenda in the DRC (STN-UNSCR2250/ RDC) under the ministry of youth and patriotic awakening where she has supervised the elaboration of the YPS National Action Plan (NAP) in 2022, helping the government to become the second African country to have its YPS NAP after Nigeria.

Since June 2025, Marie-Rose has also been leading the first National Study on YPS in the DRC, covering all 26 provinces. This research documents the perspectives of Congolese youth on peace and security policies, analyzes their role in implementing the YPS Agenda, identifies their initiatives and strategies for influencing decision-making, and assesses the challenges and lessons learned. The study will culminate in the production of a Policy Brief on Congolese youth perception of the YPS agenda implementation in the DRC.

Additionally, in 2023, she created a "Peace Stele" of Congolese women who were part of the Inter-Congolese Peace Process, prompted by her MA research that allowed the Congolese government to celebrate DRC's unsung heroines https://fulbrighternetwork.com/news/1782622/ and in 2024, she produced a film documentary on Congolese women's fight to have the parity law enshrined in the constitution: https://youtu.be/lITOms4KrfM?si=1dYJZsLFqUw9KHsr. Her current research interests focus on uncovering the narratives and security perspectives of the first group of women who were deeply involved in the first peace negotiations that ended the Second Congolese War in 2003. Marie-Rose holds a bachelor's degree in International Relations and Diplomacy, an Honours Degree in African Politics from the University of South Africa, and a Master's Degree in Women and Gender Studies from the University of Cincinnati.