Enhancing the capacity of women to engage in peace processes

About the project

This project coordinates advocacy and action through learning exchanges, assistance in coalition building, and enabling women’s access to policy platforms so that feminist perspectives on peace can be included in peace discussions. Although the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) has been in place since 2000 to strengthen women’s inclusion in peace processes, there has been little change in practice. 

Learning exchanges curated by the Participatory Governance and Gender programme adhere to the principles of intersectional analysis. This means bringing together women peace builders from different ethnic and social backgrounds with a shared experience of exclusion from peace processes and combining their knowledge and experience.  

At initial exchanges, the systemic barriers to the meaningful inclusion of women were identified by analysing the experiences of women who had been involved in peace processes or authorised to make decisions in peace negotiations. Strategies of how they had navigated the challenges of inclusion were shared. These conversations have also shed light on women’s perception of peace, which differs from the mainstream, militarised definition of national security.  

Generally, low-power groups are much more successful in defending their interests if they build their power as a coalition. In light of this, the project’s national component has taken place in Cyprus across intergenerational, rural and urban, and class divides in order to build a broad-based coalition.