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Presentation by Amy Dwyer – Head of Gender and Peacebuilding at Conciliation Resources.
Organizations working in peace and security efforts can use several tools to support women’s involvement in peace and security efforts. Amy highlighted 4 tools: 1. Gender conflict analysis, 2. working with gatekeepers, 3. intersectionality, and 4. online spaces as essential tools that can help organizations promote the inclusion of women in peace and security efforts.
1. Gender conflict analysis is an essential tool that organizations can use to understand how gender dynamics impact conflicts. This analysis should be done with community members, including women, to ensure that their perspectives are included. By engaging with the community, organizations can identify the different roles that women can play in resolving conflicts.
2. To support the inclusion of women, organizations can work with active gatekeepers who hold positions of power. Building trust with gatekeepers is crucial for ensuring that they understand the benefits of involving women in peace and security efforts. Organizations can start by working with established and respected women who can act as initial contacts with gatekeepers. Gendered conflict analysis can also be used to demonstrate the benefits of including women in peace and security efforts to gatekeepers.
3. Intersectionality is another tool that organizations can use to ensure that women’s diverse experiences are included in peace and security efforts. Organizations should conduct a contextual intersectional analysis to identify the different identity markers that are important in specific contexts, such as age, religion, and socioeconomic status. It is important to avoid essentializing communities by recognizing that one woman from a particular community cannot represent the whole community. Organizations can also use local terminology to ensure that the concepts and ideas of conflict resolution are better understood by the community.
4. Finally, online spaces can be used as a tool for conflict resolution efforts. Online spaces can reduce the masculine power barriers that exist in physical spaces, creating a more level playing field for women’s involvement. Communities can be reached over the internet, which is an effective tool for facilitating inclusion in peace and security efforts. Organizations can use social media platforms and online communication tools to engage with women in conflict-affected areas, provide them with information and resources, and build their capacity to contribute to peace and security efforts.
Resources
Gender conflict analysis toolkit
Information on Women Mediation
Discussion
The discussions centered around defining Operation1325s role in peace building processes and how we can best support our partnerorganisations. The discussion was based on the report produced by SPG 2022. Only partner organisations part of the FBA project (Yemen, Sudan, Iraq) were included in the report. It was noted that operation1325 faces some challenges with funding, because of the new government. Generally there is a consensus that Operation1325 needs to define more clearly what the objectives of the organization are. Four main areas where Operation1325 can contribute were distinguished during the discussions:
1. Facilitate networking between partner organization
Both the partnerorganisations and Operation1325 agreed that it is of great value to make sure to distribute the existing knowledge and experience between the partnerorgainsations. Possible outcomes could be sharing of methods & strategy, innovative ideas through sharing and a stronger transnational network.
Suggestions for methods:
• Regular meetings with all partner organizations where they can present what they are doing at the moment, and what challenges they face etc for inspiration and knowledge sharing.
• Resource library: create system to make it easy to find things based on context. Maybe this can exist on Operation1325s webpage.
• Live questionboard: Creating a place where partnerorganisations can post questions and get answers and input from other partnersorg.
2. Act as the expert on Resolution1325
Operation1325 can act as an expert on resolution1325 and help partnerorganisations with implementation in different context. They can also contribute to innovative ideas on how to work with resolution1325 and WPS in general.
3. Mentorship programs (request by partnerorg.)
Parnerorganisations epmhazise the importance of using and distributing all the knowledge the different organisaitons already posess. Young women are in need of mentors. Online possibilities like Zoom open up the playing field. It would be appreciated if the Operation 1325’s board and senior council can engage in this.
Challenges: the language barrier and finding suitable matches
4. Advocacy work, especially on higher levels (request by partnerorg.)
Partner organisations want Operation1325 to target governments and raise awareness, focusing on protection, prevention and early recovery.
Challenges: Operation1325 stated that higher level advocacy depends on partner organizations, and to reach the national level, there needs to be a broad enough platform for justification, and if partner organizations create more national platforms, Operation1325 is willing to support national advocacy work.
Suggestions:
• Creation a national platform by connecting multiple Swedish organizations working in the region.
• Focus on finding ways to help women take the step upwards and advocate on a higher level• Sharing ideas between operation1325 and partnerorganisations on how we work with advocacy, with emphasis on different contexts.
Based on the discussion, it is clear that the time to raise awareness and work for peace is now. The partnerorganisations also stressed the need for some tangible result on the ground in order to motivate citizens. Operation1325s focus has been on the local, but there might be room to try to bridge the gap upwards.