The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) and the Knowledge Platform Security and Rule of Law invite you to join us for a discussion “We are not there yet: Women’s participation in conflict prevention.” This expert meeting will focus on how to more efficiently support women’s participation and contribution to peacebuilding and conflict prevention. We will bring together policy makers and civil society organisations in the Netherlands and GPPAC members working in the conflict affected countries.

The programme:

Opening remarks:

Dr. Thania Paffenholz, Director, Inclusive Peace & Transition Initiative at the Graduate Institute, Geneva
Representative of the Dutch MFA-tbc
Ms Kesia-Onam Apkene Yawo Togoh, (GPPAC Gender Expert), West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, Ghana
Ms Visaka Dharmadasa, (GPPAC Gender Expert), Association for War Affected Women, Sri Lanka

Moderator: Christina Moreno, founder and CEO of She Matters.

The discussion will focus on the following questions:

What are new trends and developments in the global policy making regarding effective measures for women’s inclusion?
What is the Netherlands doing on advancing women’s meaningful participation in peace processes?
What risks and obstacles are experiencing women peacebuilders in the conflict settings?
What is the proposed way forward for advancing women’s participation in conflict prevention?

Please note: that this event is closed and by invitation only. You can register until Tuesday 17 April.

Background:

As a global network of civil society organisations working on conflict prevention, GPPAC’s strengths lie in its ability to connect civil society actors both trans-nationally and across regions and to foster understanding between them; to bring local civil society experiences to the global level; and to enhance conflict prevention approaches by bringing together experiences and approaches from different regions. When adopted in 2010 GPPACs Gender Policy highlighted as a strategic niche network’s ability to bring women’s participation in conflict prevention further up on the global agenda. A lot of the work taking place on gender issues at the time had focused on the conflict itself or on the post-conflict stage, but considerably little work had been taking place at the crossroads of conflict prevention and gender. To help with this process starting 2010 GPPAC regional networks have been appointing gender focal points as locally based experts in gender mainstreaming in conflict prevention to support GPPAC regional networks in mainstreaming gender in the work on peacebuilding and conflict prevention.

Taking the opportunity that fifteen GPPACs local and regional experts in gender mainstreaming and conflict prevention will be in the Hague in the week of April 16 GPPAC is organising a discussion session to facilitate sharing their experiences and challenges with partners and interested CSOs, policy makers and academics in order to tackle some of the persistent challenges for women’s active involvement in conflict prevention and peacebuilding and to amplify their contributions to the peace and security processes.