Women Building Peace

How and why do women's contributions matter in peace and security processes? Why should women's activities in this sphere be explored separately from peacebuilding efforts in general? Decisively answering these questions, Sanam Anderlini offers a comprehensive, cross-regional analysis of women's peacebuilding initiatives around the world. and highlights the endemic problems that stunt progress. Her astute analysis, based on extensive research and field experience, demonstrates how gender sensitivity in programming can be a catalytic component in the complex task of building sustainable peace and provides concrete examples of how to draw on women's untapped potential.

In the early 2000s, Liberian women wearing wrap skirts and white T-shirts, shouting: ‘We want peace, no more war’, attracted international attention. After almost fifteen years of civil war, the enduring active, multifaceted, and non-violent campaigning for peace by women’s organisations contributed to the end of the fighting and the signing of a peace agreement between the warring factions. Although it is widely assumed that women’s inclusion in peace processes yields greater attention to women’s issues and needs in the aftermath of a conflict, this is only partly the case in Liberia. Thus, this analysis looks beyond the extraordinary commitment by women in Liberia and deals with the questions to what extent their role in the peace process has contributed to gender-sensitive outcomes in post-conflict Liberian society and why greater gender sensitivity was not achieved. By focusing on manifestations of patterns of masculinity in the public and private spheres, Anne Theobald identifies factors at different levels of analysis within different time frames that elucidate the unexpected outcome. Not only does this provide for a more encompassing understanding of dynamics of gender relations and context-specific variables impeding gender sensitivity in post-conflict settings, but it also helps to refine prevailing theoretical approaches on gender in peacemaking and peacebuilding and to develop more holistic, context-specific, and efficient policy approaches, which can effectively lead to gender-sensitive peace.

Advances the critical dialogue on the importance of women in international peace and security. Points out the importance of women in building and keeping peace. Brings together diverse voices from diplomats to military officials and from human rights activists to development professionals. "

This book is an examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through psychoanalytic, sociopsychological, and nationalistic lenses, highlighting the successes and the hurdles faced by one organization, Healing Across the Divides (HATD), in its mission to measurably improve health in marginalized populations of both Israelis and Palestinians. Peace Building through Women’s Health begins with a summary of the "peace building through health" field and a psychoanalytic, sociopsychological examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After a series of informative case studies, the book concludes with an analysis of how this organization has evolved its "peace building through health" approach over the fifteen years since its founding. Working with community groups, HATD has measurably improved the lives of more than 200,000 marginalized Israelis and Palestinians. In the process, it also improves the effectiveness of the community group grantees, by offering experienced management consulting and by requiring rigorous ongoing self-assessment on the part of the groups. IHATD hopes that, in the long term, some of the community leaders it supports will be tomorrow’s political leaders. As these leaders strengthen their own capabilities, they will be able to increasingly contribute to securing peace in one of the longest running conflicts in the world today. Peace Building through Women’s Health will be invaluable to public and mental health professionals interested in international health, peace and conflict studies, and conflict resolution.

This book explores the peacebuilding ideas and experiences of Maasai and Gusii women of faith in Kenya. Women of faith across the world have long demonstrated their leadership in peacebuilding. They have achieved this despite their underrepresentation in formal peacebuilding systems and the persistent lack of consideration for their critical contributions, and in the face of insecurity and violence against their very bodies. Their efforts include daily practices of sharing resources, building social cohesion, promoting human relations, and interlinking psychological, social, political, and spiritual encounters. This book provides a gender-responsive peacebuilding framework that leverages the intersectionality of womens diverse identities and roles as they navigate both secular and religious spaces for peace. The book will appeal to researchers and teachers as well as practitioners and activists. Jaqueline Ogega (Ph.D., University of Bradford, UK) is a social scientist with extensive experience in international development, peacebuilding, and humanitarian relief programming and field research. She is the Senior Director of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion at World Vision USA, and the Co-Founder and president of Mpanzi: Empowering Women and Girls. She is the author of Home Is Us, a story about hope and resilience.

This book provides a critical assessment of the impact of UN Resolution 1325 by examining the effect of peacebuilding missions on increasing gender equality within conflict-affected countries. UN Resolution 1325 was adopted in October 2000, and was the first time that the security concerns of women in situations of armed conflict and their role in peacebuilding was placed on the agenda of the UN Security Council. It was an important step forward in terms of bringing women’s rights and gender equality to bear in the UN’s peace and security agenda. More than a decade after the adoption of this Resolution, its practical reality is yet to be substantially felt on the ground in the very societies and regions where women remain disproportionately affected by armed conflict and grossly under-represented in peace processes. This realization, in part, led to the adoption in 2008 and 2009 of three other Security Council Resolutions, on sexual violence in conflict, violence against women, and for the development of indicators to measure progress in addressing women, peace and security issues. The book draws together the findings from eight countries and four regional contexts to provide guidance on how the impact of Resolution 1325 can be measured, and how peacekeeping operations could improve their capacity to effectively engender security. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, gender studies, the United Nations, international security and IR in general.

Passed in 2000, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and subsequent seven Resolutions make up the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. This agenda is a significant international normative and policy framework addressing the gender-specific impacts of conflict on women and girls, including protection against sexual and gender-based violence, promotion of women's participation in peace and security processes, and support for women's roles as peace builders in the prevention of conflict and rebuilding of societies after conflict. Implementation within and across states and international organizations - and within peace and security operations - has been slow despite significant transnational advocacy in support of the WPS agenda. The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace, and Security brings together scholars, advocates, and policymakers to provide an overview of what we know concerning what works to promote women's participation in peace and security, what works to protect women and girls from sexual and gender-based violence and other human rights violations, and what works to prevent conflict drawing on women's experiences and knowledge of building peace from local to global levels. Just as importantly, it addresses the gaps in knowledge on and the future direction of scholarship on WPS. The handbook particularly aims to build on the findings from the 2015 Global Study of Resolution 1325, commissioned by the UN-Secretary General. Over the course of six sections, the handbook addresses the concepts and early history behind WPS; the theory and practice of WPS; international institutions involved with the WPS agenda; the implementation of WPS in conflict prevention, peace operations, peace building, arms control, human-rights protection, and protection of civilians; connections between WPS and other UN resolutions and agendas; and the ongoing and future challenges of WPS.