Ledio Cakaj is a researcher and writer focused on armed groups, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants, both adults and children. He has worked for close to two decades in the Balkans and Central Africa. Cakaj spent eight years studying the Lord's Resistance Army, initially during a master's degree at Princeton University, and later working as a consultant for the World Bank, the Enough Project, Small Arms Survey and Resolve, among others.
Cakaj is a native Albanian, born in 1978. He left home at 16 years old, as Albania was plagued by violence and struggling to shed its communist past. He walked along with other unaccompanied minors to Greece where he worked odd jobs to survive. After four years without a legal status in Greece, Cakaj managed to migrate to England where he was able to return to school. Several years later, he completed high school and graduated with a degree in ancient and modern history from St. John's College, Oxford University, in 2005.
He now he lives in Washington DC with his wife and three young children.
