The Participation of Women in Peace Processes-The Other Tables is a paper that argues that women’s absence in peace processes cannot be explained by their alleged lack of experience in dialogue and negotiation, but by a serious lack of will to include them in such important initiatives of change. Women have wide ranging experience in dialogue processes including many war and post-war contexts, but there has been a deliberate lack of effort to integrate them in formal peace processes. After introducing the research framework, the paper addresses women’s involvement in peace, and analyzes the role played by women in peace processes, through the cases of Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland. The paper concludes that peace processes are as gendered as wars, and for that reason gender has to be a guiding line for including women in peace processes.
Training Manual: Gender Leadership in Humanitarian Action- Institutionalizing Gender in Emergencies: Bridging Policy and Practice in the Humanitarian System. This manual pulls a range of sources, adapting and updating them for an integrated five-day training module designed to develop gender leadership in humanitarian action in a country context. It draws heavily on work by the authors of Oxfam’s Training Manual on Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in Emergencies, Oxfam, (2013, unpublished). It also draws on training materials compiled for Oxfam’s Gender Leadership Programme, particularly those delivered in the Middle East & Commonwealth of Independent States (MECIS) region, and on training materials developed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC). The Simulation of a disaster exercise is adapted from the exercise used in IASC’s online course, Gender in Humanitarian Action. Various case studies from the online course have also been used. It is hoped that people will use this source to adapt and create their own training sessions too, in this rapidly evolving and vital area of work.
This study highlights a variety of ways that women, specifically, have experienced conflict and peacebuilding, and offers new insights and provides important lessons for international and national agencies promoting democracy reform and peacebuilding. Its purpose is twofold: first, to increase the visibility and recognition of women from marginalized communities as stakeholders in peace- and state-building activities, as actors who both disrupt (‘spoilers’) and work toward (‘facilitators’) peace and security; and, second, to raise awareness about strategies and practices to enhance their participation.
