Where leadership, strategy, mediation and coordination meet
Peter Urs Aeberhard, founder and Managing Director of THAC
THAC connects the human realities of pressure, trust and conflict with the structures of leadership and governance. Its work translates between what people experience and how institutions are designed, so that organisations, institutions and societies stay able to act when it matters most.
From trauma healing to the human aspect
THAC was founded in Bern in 2015 as the Trauma Healing and Creative Arts Coalition. It grew out of work with partners in Burundi, Somalia, the DR Congo and Switzerland, among them THARS, Paix pour l’Enfance, Somali civil society organisations and IFOR Switzerland. Today THAC works as The Human Aspect. It carries its original focus on people, relationships and resilience into leadership, governance, mediation and organisational change.
The thread is continuous: trauma and violence → relationships and trust → organisations and institutions → leadership, governance and mediation under pressure.
Three decades in brief
| Period | Role |
|---|---|
| 1994–2004 | Caritas Switzerland: Regional Representative for East Africa; set up the regional office in Nairobi; emergency and recovery programmes in Somalia, Sudan, Kenya and Djibouti; built up the peacebuilding unit |
| 2006–2007 | Fondation Hirondelle: Director of Operations (independent media in fragile contexts) |
| 2007–2015 | Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs: Head of Controlling and Evaluation, Human Security Division; Head of Strategic Controlling, General Secretariat; Senior Political Adviser for the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes |
| 2016–2019 | Coordinator of the Swiss Civil Society Platform on Migration and Development (mandate of Caritas and Helvetas for SDC) |
| 2017–2019 | Senior Advisor Security, Caritas Switzerland |
| 2022–2025 | SWISSAID: programmes in Niger and Tanzania |
| since 2015 | THAC: advisory, facilitation, mediation and training; trainer for the Institute for Peace and Dialogue (Basel) |
Geographer (University of Bern), trained mediator, with further training in conflict management, conflict-sensitive programming (Do No Harm, trainer of trainers) and refugee trauma and recovery (Harvard). Languages: German, English, French, Spanish.
Signature contribution: a whole-of-government strategy for the Horn of Africa
At the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, I drafted Switzerland’s overarching strategy for the Horn of Africa for 2013–2016, coordinated its development across federal departments and chaired the interdepartmental working group.
The strategy followed a whole-of-government approach (WOGA): diplomacy, development cooperation, peace and human security and the other federal offices active in the region were to work from one shared framework instead of side by side. The operational cooperation strategy of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation then translated it into programmes.
Within the framework of the strategy:
- A framework agreement on partnership and cooperation with IGAD, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, signed in 2014: the first partnership between Switzerland and IGAD.
- A Swiss ambassador accredited to Somalia (2014), the first in thirty years.
- Coordinated engagement of Human Security and Humanitarian Aid in the region.
- Migration cooperation with the countries and institutions of the Horn of Africa.
The contribution lay in joining content, process and continuous coordination: writing the strategy, bringing different institutional mandates and priorities to the table, and keeping them aligned. This is the core of what THAC offers today: making institutions with different logics work towards one goal.
Four strengths, and where they apply
Leadership
Experience: leading regional teams and country programmes in East Africa under conditions of war, displacement and emergency; operational leadership at Fondation Hirondelle; programme responsibility for Niger and Tanzania; years of training leaders in strategic leadership, mediation and conflict transformation.
What it means today: helping leadership teams realign after crisis, transition or conflict, and strengthening their capacity to decide and act under pressure.
Strategy
Experience: the whole-of-government strategy for the Horn of Africa (see above). As head of strategic controlling and evaluation, I worked on how strategies are steered, measured and adjusted.
What it means today: strategy development and strategic controlling for organisations and institutions in complex or fragile contexts: clear choices, few priorities, and indicators that show whether they work.
Mediation and conflict transformation
Experience: programme responsibility for the vocational reintegration of former militia members in Somalia; team building, Do No Harm training and conflict-sensitive evaluations in the former Yugoslavia; ten years as co-president of IFOR Switzerland (International Fellowship of Reconciliation); training in mediation and in conflict management after Glasl.
What it means today: preparing and facilitating dialogue and mediation processes, from teams to political actors, and unblocking cooperation between partners or institutions.
Coordination
Experience: chairing the interdepartmental working group of the Horn of Africa strategy; coordinating a national platform of more than 80 civil society organisations and connecting its dialogue with international policy processes, including the Global Forum on Migration and Development; coordinating multi-country programmes from Nairobi.
What it means today: coordinating multi-actor processes in which government, civil society, faith actors, business and donors have to work together, with clear roles, transparent decisions and the patience to keep everyone on board.
Trauma as a governance issue
In 2024 DCAF, the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance, published Addressing trauma as a missing element in security sector governance and reform: Perspectives on trauma-informed policing. I was its primary author, with Abigail Robinson (project lead and co-author) and Dan Hales (co-author). The study examines trauma at the individual, organisational and collective level and links it with institutional performance, use of force, trust and reform. DCAF has since built on this work in its 2026 guide on assessing and addressing trauma in the security sector.
For THAC, trauma is primarily an organisational and governance lens, not a clinical offer. It helps explain why institutions under sustained pressure lose trust and capability, and what leadership and governance can do about it.
Where it all comes together
These four strengths are the reason THAC initiated Healthy Prosperity for Africa, a proposal on trust, healing and legitimacy as a contribution to Agenda 2063:
- Leadership: giving people in politics, administration, faith, business and youth a non-partisan issue on which to lead.
- Strategy: a testable hypothesis, clear standards, and anchoring in existing frameworks instead of a new programme.
- Mediation: community dialogue, recognition and repair: the core of healing between groups and between citizens and the state.
- Coordination: holding together an African consortium, partners and institutions in the start-up phase, until facilitation is handed over.
The analytical basis is the evolving Relational Systems Framework, which describes how relationships, trust, pressure and institutional conditions shape the ability of people and organisations to function.
How THAC works
Advisory, facilitation, mediation and training, led by Peter Urs Aeberhard and, where useful, together with experienced practitioners from the THAC network. THAC works with international NGOs, public institutions and international cooperation, security institutions and reform partners, migration and asylum actors, and training institutes.
Contact: peter.aeberhard@thac.ch
Healthy Prosperity for Africa · Relational Systems Framework · Publications · Français