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Women Move Beyond Emotions
In January 2011, Belle Abaya was interviewed about negotiations and mediation and she pointed out that peace negotiation teams tend to be mostly men. In cultures such as that of Ms. Abaya’s in the Philippines, this may be detrimental to the peace process as men there are taught to suppress their emotions and have a fear of […]
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Negotiations Must be Sustained
Rebecca Joshua Okwaci has been a driving force in South Sudan and Sudan for years, constantly pushing parties to the peace negotiations to not lose momentum. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended decades of war with its signing in 2005, recently expired with the referendum vote for separation of the two states. The negotiation of […]
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Creating Consensus
One of the main barriers in negotiations is building trust between the parties. Belle Abaya, a peacebuilder from the Philippines, was able to create a consensus of goals using a model of peacebuilding she developed.
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Reflective Democracy
In order to connect the people at the top of government to the people at the grassroots, Belle Abaya and her team in the Philippines created a model for reflective democracy and dialogue. This allowed the government to make more informed decisions. At the same time it helped knowledgeable people at the grassroots be heard.
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Author: Empowering Women Empowers Peace Process
This article was originally published by Houston Chronicle. Swanee Hunt, 61, the daughter of legendary Texas oil man H.L. Hunt, is the Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In 1999, she founded the Washington-based Institute for Inclusive Security, which encourages women’s participation in peace efforts around the world. The […]
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VIDEO: The Case is There, Women Delivered
Angelina Teny is one of seven women leaders from South Sudan who came to Washington, DC, in December 2011 to make recommendations for the development plan for her new country to better include women. During a gender symposium hosted by Inclusive Security and UN Women, Teny and others crafted policy suggestions later presented at the […]
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South Sudanese Women Leader Sees Long Way Ahead for Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment
This article was originally published by Xinhua News Agency. Sarah Ajith James arrived in Washington last Sunday night, just five months after her country — South Sudan — seceded from Sudan and became the world’ s 193rd nation, knowing that the road to equality would be long and difficult for women in the world’s newest […]
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South Sudan: Women Aim to Protect Their Rights in a Young State
This article was originally published by Inter Press Service. As South Sudan maps out its economic future at the South Sudan International Engagement Conference (IEC) this week in Washington, women from the new country called on donors to invest in projects that ensure women benefit equally from development plans. … The Institute for Inclusive Security, […]
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The Time Is Ripe for a National Dialogue on Reconciliation
This article was originally published by Huffington Post. After the tragic assassination of the head of the High Peace Council — Professor Burnahuddin Rabbani — in late September, many pundits took to the airwaves, blogosphere, and Twitterverse to predict the death of the reconciliation effort in Afghanistan. While the brazen killing was undoubtedly designed to […]
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Nobel Peace Prize Winners Leymah Gbowee and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Recognized
This article was originally published by The Daily Beast. Looking out the airplane window at a white winter landscape in Oslo yesterday, I thought back to another flight. Several years ago, a U.N. helicopter took me “up country” to the Liberian bush. Sitting in circles on rickety chairs in the heavy heat, women leaders (albeit […]
