Women’s Participation and Inclusive Peace Processes: Lessons Learned from Mindanao and Beyond - Conciliation Resources
This short submission builds on Conciliation Resources’ practical peacebuilding experience to promote more inclusive peace processes. Despite international commitments to greater inclusion in the field of peace and security, including increased women’s participation, peace processes remain male-dominated and elitist. This submission identifies the obstacles that limit increased participation of women in peace talks, and challenges the over-emphasis on formal peace talks at the expense of other, more inclusive and democratic deliberation and decision-making processes beyond the negotiating table. It presents the Mindanao peace process as a case study in which women in both formal negotiations and parallel peacebuilding efforts achieved high levels of meaningful participation. Lastly, it presents recommendations for key stakeholders, which are listed below.
- To further prioritise and invest in context analysis, specifically gender analysis so that efforts to increase women’s participation are strategic and tailored to local conditions, and to ensure that all peace and security efforts are gender-sensitive.
- To provide greater political and financial support to women peacebuilders, and civil society organisations including but not limited to women’s rights organisations. Women’s contributions to peace processes need to be acknowledged with greater financial and political support.
- To base support to peace processes and mediation efforts on an understanding of peace processes as a series of complementary and mutually reinforcing initiatives (both formal and informal) which can bring about an end to armed conflict, create the basis for a new inclusive political settlement and support reconciliation.
