Liv Tørres is a Non-Resident Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC) and currently the International Secretary of the Norwegian Confederation of Labour – LO Norway.
Tørres was formerly the Director of the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies program. The Pathfinders is a group of UN member states, international organizations, global partnerships, civil society, and the private sector working to accelerate the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets for peace, justice and inclusion (SDG16+). She has worked on international humanitarian, peace, and development issues, as both a scholar and practitioner, for three decades. Before joining Pathfinders, she was the executive director of the Nobel Peace Center. She previously served as the secretary general of Norwegian People’s Aid, a humanitarian, development, and disarmament organization operating in over 40 countries, after several years of leading its International Department.
She has also worked for many years on labour issues, as a political advisor for Norway’s Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion, the manager of the first National Labour Force Survey in South Africa, and with several publications on trade unionism, labour relations and labour market issues. She was also a member of the Norwegian Labour Party´s International Committee for nearly 10 years.
Her academic background includes positions such as senior advisor leading development research at the Research Council of Norway, and associate professor at the University of Oslo. In the 1990s, she established and managed Fafo South Africa, an international policy research center, where she also served as managing director for several years. More recently, since 2017, she has served as a visiting professor at Wits University in Johannesburg. She is currently the chair of the portfolio board on Global Development and International Relations research at the Research Council of Norway.
Tørres holds a PhD in political science from the University of Oslo. She is an active commentator whose expertise is in demand in fields including peacebuilding, conflict resolution, justice and equality, inclusive societies, development policy, labour issues, and democratization.