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Created through a partnership between Inclusive Peace, PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, and Monash University, the PeaceFem App brings together available data on women and gender provisions in peace negotiations and implementation in one easy-to-use app.

The platform was designed specifically with the advancement of the WPS agenda in mind and is intended for use by women’s rights advocates, mediation and negotiation teams, and other actors working in peace and mediation processes. As such, and as any other resource that we provide, we are constantly trying to improve the aptness of tools we can offer fellow peacebuilders and customise them to their needs.

PeaceFem v2 walkthrough video

Here are 4 reasons why you should give the app a try:

COMPARATIVE STRATEGIES: PeaceFem provides information about strategies women’s rights advocates have used to influence peace agreements, information about the enabling and constraining factors that shaped the space for influence, and the gender provisions in the peace agreements that resulted and information as to how well they were implemented.

EVIDENCE-BASED RESEARCH: The app draws on PA-X peace agreement data from the University of Edinburgh, and 30 case studies developed by Inclusive Peace and Monash University’s Gender, Peace and Security Centre. Additional countries in this 2023 version features case studies from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Tunisia.

CUSTOMISATION: The platform is easy to use and intuitive – you can filter your search by region, country/entity, peace process, provision category, and strategy category

ACCESSIBILITY: All content is accessible in both English, Arabic, French, and Indonesian and can, moreover, be downloaded and is then easily available offline, so the app can even be used in areas with little or no internet connectivity.

Not convinced yet? Here is a bonus reason: the platform is a free resource that is meant to inspire and help focus your work while only taking up 50MB on your phone.

Download the app here for Android or iOS and try it for yourself! Also, feel free to let us know what you think under our designated feedback channel: peacefem@ed.ac.uk

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Each month we bring you a selection of key peacebuilding dates in the month to come. Here our choice of selected March events and observances. 

March 8: International Women’s Day 2022

“Celebrate women’s achievements. Raise awareness against bias. Take action for equality.” This year’s international Women’s Day celebration, observed on the 8th of March, sets a clear agenda. With a focus on #BreakTheBias organisers of this year’s observance have partnered with major companies to fight gender inequality by fostering connections and offering entry points for collective action towards empowering women’s work in different industries and creating more visibility. Check out the initiatives here.

March 14-25: Commission on the Status of Women

Every year during March, the UN hosts the Commission on the Status of Women – the world’s biggest gathering on women’s rights where high-level leaders, policy-makers and WPS practitioners meet to discuss the progress of global gender equality and next steps to advance women’s rights on a global scale. This year, the CSW takes place in a hybrid format where formal negotiations will take place in person, while side events will all be virtual. This year CSW will focus on achieving gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in relation to climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes.

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Each month we bring you a selection of key peacebuilding dates in the month to come. Here are a choice of selected May events and observances. 

03 May: World Press Freedom Day

World Press Freedom day is celebrated through a 4-day conference, hosted by @UNESCO and the Republic of Uruguay from the 2 to 5 May under the theme “Journalism under Digital Siege”. The workshops will reunite relevant global stakeholders to explore the digital era’s impact on freedom of expression, the safety of journalists, access to information and privacy. Inclusive Peace supports this international call to governments to respect their commitment to press freedom and joins efforts to develop concrete solutions to address the threats posed by increased surveillance to press freedom and privacy.  https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldpressfreedomday

03-05 May: Bologna Peacebuilding Forum

The Agency for Peacebuilding (AP) holds the 4th edition of the Bologna Peacebuilding Forum, a major event in Italy and Europe for the sector. Under the theme, ‘Reimagining Conflict Prevention’, the conference seeks to strengthen the network of peacebuilding scholars and practitioners to improve policy-oriented research and fieldwork, and reach new audiences. 

21 May: World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

In 2002, the UN General Assembly declared May 21 to be the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development in resolution 57/249, “affirming culture’s contribution to the three dimensions of sustainable development, acknowledging further the natural and cultural diversity of the world, and recognising that cultures and civilizations can contribute to, and are crucial enablers of, sustainable development.” 

The 4 goals of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions guide the celebrations and actions taken around this observance.

23-25 May: Stockholm Forum

The hybrid 2022 Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development is co-hosted by SIPRI and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs under the theme ‘From a Human Security Crisis Towards an Environment of Peace’. Inclusive Peace will host a session with Humanity United on Monday 23 May at 17:30 CEST to explore what peacebuilders can learn from climate activists and how these movements can collaborate more: Fridays for peace? What youth peacebuilders can learn from global youth climate advocacy. Check out this page for more information and the official registration dates here.

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Each month we bring you a selection of key peacebuilding dates in the month to come. Here are a choice of selected June events and observances. 

01 – 30 June: Pride Month 

For the month of June every year, LGBTIQ+ communities around the world celebrate their   influence and contribution to diversity, inclusion, justice and human rights globally. During the month celebrations and events take place around the world. June was chosen as Pride Month because the Stonewall Riots took place in June in 1969 in the US.

15-16 June 2022: National Dialogues Conference 2022 

The National Dialogue Conference is an inclusive space for joint reflection and in-depth discussion between the invited practitioners, stakeholders, and experts working with peace mediation and dialogue processes in different contexts. It is hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Finland, The Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers, Finn Church Aid, Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission, and Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation. The conference will take place Helsinki, Finland. 

19 June: International Day for the Prevention of Sexual Violence in Conflict

The General Assembly’s 2015 resolution proclaimed 19 June as a day to condemn and call for the end of conflict-related sexual violence, including rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy and enforced sterilization and to honour victims, survivors and those fighting to end these most horrific of crimes.

20 June: World Refugee Day

World Refugee Day is celebrated every year on 20 June to honour refugees around the world and to bring attention to people’s diverse perspectives, experiences, achievements and challenges. This year the focus will be on the right to safety. 

“Every person on this planet has a right to seek safety – whoever they are, wherever they come from and whenever they are forced to flee.” UNHCR

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Each month we bring you a selection of key peacebuilding dates in the month to come. Here are a choice of selected September events and observances. 

15 September: “No Peace without Women, “What do Women Bring to Peace Processes, Conflict Prevention and Human Security?”

The Women’s Federation for World Peace International will be hosting a webinar, “No Peace without Women, “What do Women Bring to Peace Processes, Conflict Prevention and Human Security?” to commemorate International Peace Day. Afterwards, the event will have three sessions of 75 minutes, each with 3-4 speakers. In the second session, Inclusive Peace’s Executive Director Dr Thania Paffenholz will be making her contributions to the discussion “How do Women Negotiate Differently?”

15 September: International Day for Democracy

This year’s theme of “Strengthening democratic resilience in the face of future crises,” will be an opportunity to take a look at the state of the world’s democracies. It is important to recognise that democracy is not a static goal, but rather a process. The ideal of democracy can only become a reality with the full participation and support of the international community, national governing bodies, civil society, and individuals.

28 September: International Day for Universal Access to Information

In October 2019, the 74th UN General Assembly proclaimed 28 September as the International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI) at the UN level. This year’s theme is, “Artificial Intelligence, e-Governance and Access to Information.” Inclusive Peace offers unrestricted access to our website’s resource page which has papers from policy briefs to reports. Based on our core themes, there are papers from policy briefs to reports focusing on inclusion in peace and political transition processes.

 

Photos from Freepix Photos

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Each month we bring you a selection of reading material recommendations from our staff. Here are the selected readings for November. 

The epistemological violence of liberal Ethiopian feminism: A response to Sehin Teferra by Mistir Sew

A series of articles shared with me from late 2020, which explore debates around feminism in Ethiopia, including how feminism relates to (or not) broader dynamics related to the country’s political trajectory.

Recommended by Alex Shoebridge

1946: The making of the modern world by Victor Sebestyen

Wars didn’t end in 1945. After Nazi Germany collapsed, it took time for refugees, prisoners of war, soldiers and politicians to return to their homes and rebuild a life. 1946 is a story about the beginning of the new world, with an international system that is till familiar today as it shapes how political actors approach decisions such as war and peace in the 21st century. As we rethink existing models in a post-Covid world, returning to 1946 is a helpful guide that explains the opportunities, shortcomings and challenges that led to the absence of another world war for nearly 100 years.

Recommended by Caroline Varin

Tamakon by Kaitlyn Hashem

A framing blog for a new Arabic-language podcast series called Tamakon, co-curated by Kaitlyn Hashem, a hugely talented young researcher. The podcast series aims to provide an analytical space for women from the Arab world to present their analyses and insights on critical social, political, economic, and cultural issues impacting the Middle East and North Africa. In doing so it tries to address the barriers to women’s exclusion from socio-political spaces, and confront often elite and tokenistic endeavours to advance women’s inclusion. The blog and the series also constructively problematise the (horrible) term “women’s issues”, interestingly concluding that despite their well-meaning efforts to get beyond the term, the first season of the podcast demonstrated that “for as long as systematic gender inequality persists, there will be no abandoning “women’s issues”. Instead it aims to provide a platform for women to define “women’s issues” and also to define what terms like “empowerment” and “liberation” mean.

Recommended by Alex Bramble

Tattoos on the Heart by Greg Boyle

The founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest Gang reinsertion program in the world, Father Greg Boyle tells stories that will make you laugh and cry about the power of compassion and how to stand with those on the margins. A great and powerful model for inclusion.

A grain of Wheat / Ngugi wa Thiong’o

One of Kenya’s greatest writers with a historical novel about Kenya’s path to independence. In A Grain of Wheat , Ngugi Wa Thiong’o writes about the lives of villagers whose lives have been transformed by the 1952–1960 Emergency.

Recommended by Rainer Gude

Against White Feminism by Rafia Zakaria

Important voice to fill gaps in feminist mainstream literature and also to better reflect current development of a feminist movement/foreign policy

Recommended by Pamela Skowron-Mrowka

Peace between Peace(s)? Urban Peace and the Coexistence of Antagonists in City Spaces by Ivan Gusic

Peace is many things to many people, but one thing it isn’t is singular. Transitions from war are contested because there are always competing visions of what a postwar society should look like. But while there may be outliers that deviate from the norm, they do not foreclose the possibility of coexistence between multiple versions of peace. This article suggests that cities can generate spaces where multiple forms of peace can coexist by being creative, accommodating, and fragmenting urban space through their design. The example used is Belfast, Mitrovica, and Mostar. The author calls this conceptualisation urban peace.

Recommended by Wairimu Wanjau

 

 

Photo from FreePik

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Each month we bring you a selection of reading material recommendations from our staff. Here are the selected readings for October. 

The Face of Peace

An extremely informative and insightful investigation into a crucial – yet underexplored – facet of the viability, legitimacy, and sustainability of peace agreements: public engagement and public buy-in. Despite being a model peace process in many respects, the 2016 Colombian peace agreement with the FARC was narrowly rejected by a popular referendum. The book examines the concept of “peace pedagogy”, exploring the issues with public outreach and how the challenges of government-society relations affected public buy-in to the agreement.

Recommended by Alex Bramble

Prospects and challenges for women’s roles in conflict prevention and reconciliation in Lebanon

This in-depth policy brief takes a look at the challenges and possible opportunities facing women peacebuilders in Lebanon (in Tripoli and Bekaa in particular). One of the main findings of the policy brief is that gender, class, age and nationality continue to be points of division between Lebanese communities (often triggered by memories of the civil war).

Recommended by Farah Abou Harb

“Terribly Lonely”: The Psychological Impact of Mediating Violent Conflict

The article explores some of the challenges associated with contemporary peacemaking, setting out possible options to chart a different course and reflecting on the personal and professional toll and investment it takes from those involved.

Recommended by Alex Shoebridge 

Kings of Shanghai

An epic book following two remarkable families and the impact they had on the world. The Kadooris and the Sassoons, both of jewish origin from Iraq, built fortunes in China, survived the Japanese invasion and the Chinese revolution before fleeing to Hong Kong where they reinvented the city’s fortunes. Their story is one of resilience, survival, courage, generosity, solidarity and ambition. Kings of Shanghai is an unusual and exciting book that follows the two families’ experiences of peace and war in the twentieth century.

Recommended by Caroline Varin

Photo from FreePik

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Each month we bring you a selection of reading material recommendations from our staff. Here are the selected readings for September. 

Dissolving conflict. Local peace agreements and armed conflict transitions

In recognising the “stuckness” of formal Track 1 peace negotiation processes, the article explores the various functions of local peace agreements and reflects on the potential for local peace agreements to provide alternate pathways to peacemaking.

 

Recommended by Alex Shoebridge

There Is Nothing for You Here by Fiona Hill

Fiona Hill’s book was the top recommendation of the FT’s Best Summer Books, and absolutely hit the spot. Hill picks up where JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy ended, offering a detailed and personal critique of socio-economic divides in Russia, the US and UK and explaining how these have shaped geopolitics the last 32 years. A chilling warning for politicians to heed and an opportunity to take impactful actions.

Recommended by Caroline Varin

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

This book has been waiting on my desk for some time now and I finally got to read it this summer. A fascinating and moving story about courage, dedication, resilience and willing power to end oppression and achieve political transition.

Recommended by Philip Poppelreuter

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Each month we bring you a selection of key peacebuilding dates in the month to come. Here are our choice of selected April events and observances. 

02 April – 02 May: Ramadan 

This April marks the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, called Ramadan and is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting and prayer. With the aim of growing in spirituality and closeness to Allah and loved ones this celebration centres community and reflection, as well as peace and healing amongst its cultural traditions. Look out for our Ramadan Reflections series which features Islamic scholars and peacebuilders speaking about Islam and peace work.

07 April: World Health Day

This year’s World Health Day, WHO will focus on “urgent actions needed to keep humans and the planet healthy and foster a movement to create societies focused on well-being.” Specifically, this will also entail fighting the climate crisis, promoting sustainable development and environmental justice with the aim of preventing fatalities due to avoidable environmental causes.

 Inclusive Peace and global peacemakers join in these efforts for environmental equity and reconciliation and encourage you to do the same. Get involved and join the WHO campaign here!

15 – 18 April: Easter

One of the most important and oldest celebrations in the Christian faith is Easter, which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This observance marks new beginnings for the followers of Christ and highlights peace, atonement and reconciliation as core practices within the religion.

22 April: Earth Day

“Act boldly, innovate broadly, and implement equitably!” 

This year we celebrate Earth Day as a call to action for not only the climate crisis, but also the global business and political climate crises. The organisers have planned multiple initiatives, events and programmes to improve our climate literacy and get us involved in one of the five thematic areas from restoration to food security. Learn more here!

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While the UN Security Council’s agenda continues to be dominated by emerging and sustained crises, recent efforts by non-permanent Member States show a promising level of imagination and collaboration.

Following recent debates in the UN Security Council, we at Inclusive Peace observe a focus not only on current crises, but also on structural questions. This gives hope to how the UN Security Council can be used to address peace and security in a more holistic, preventive and inclusive way. Here are a couple of examples from recent debates that we think highlight this trend:

Focus on Women, Peace & Security
Recent debates in the UNSC included a strong focus on the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, where the joint efforts of Ireland, Kenya and Mexico in November/December 2021 look set to be carried forward by Norway, the UAE and Albania throughout their respective Presidencies in 2022. In January, Norway furthermore used their Presidency to host a Ministerial-level Open Debate on “Protecting Participation: Addressing Violence Targeting Women in Peace and Security Processes”.

Non-permanent UNSC members have more say
Efforts have also been made to revitalize the “early warning” focus of the UNSC, while also placing a further emphasis on the linkages between climate change and peace and security. These actions demonstrate the potential influence non-permanent UNSC members can have on the substantive focus of the UN Security Council, which can serve to counter the positions of other actors who may have traditionally been less open to bringing such matters to the UN Security Council.

A close up of the gavel in the hand of Juan Ramón de la Fuente Ramirez, Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations and President of the Security Council for the month of November. Photo: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

At Inclusive Peace, we view these efforts as providing a critical forum – including for civil society actors – to advocate and influence implementation by the UN Security Council. However, efforts to advance these progressive agendas are often frustrated by dynamics amongst the permanent members of the council which in turn limits the extent to which progressive agendas can actively shape the work of UN envoys and good offices “on the ground”. At the same time, many UN-supported peace negotiation processes are frustrated or stalled.

We very much welcome the energy, imagination and determination of a significant number of Member States in trying to move the needle forward on key agendas – including on WPS and inclusion more broadly – and see our work at Inclusive Peace as a contribution to these efforts in practical, concrete ways both through our peace process support and our research agenda.

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