International Women's Day 2024:

Women of The Berlin Moot share their recommendations for empowering women in conflict

Women’s involvement in peacebuilding and mediation leads to more sustainable peace agreements. Yet too often they remain excluded from peace processes. Ensuring gender equality, particularly for those already disenfranchised by conflict, is essential for prosperous societies and for building sustainable peace.

For this year’s International Women’s Day, the United Nations identifies an alarming lack of financing as a key challenge in achieving gender equality. We are joining the UN’s call to #InvestInWomen by highlighting what we can do to empower women in conflicts and during peace processes, despite limited resources.

On 17 and 18 April, we will bring together global experts and policymakers with peace and mediation practitioners at The Berlin Moot, a conference aiming to pioneer new approaches to peacemaking. Five women experts and practitioners who will be part of The Berlin Moot share their insights on how to facilitate women's empowerment in peace and mediation processes.

Watch the videos to hear their recommendations:

Chris Coulter, Deputy Executive Director at the Berghof Foundation speaks about the inclusion of women in not only in formal, but also in informal processes.

Atim Evenye Niger Thomas, Executive Director of Authentique Memorial Empowerment Foundation (AMEF), shares a lesson on clear communication that she has learned as a woman peacebuilder.

Neha Sanghrajka, Senior Advisor on Mediation at the UN and Co-Founder of Women Mediators Across the Commonwealth, emphasises how important it is for female peacebuilders to listen to viewpoints that are different from their own.

Stella Voutta, Programme Director for Peace, Global Issues at the Robert Bosch Stiftung discusses why women are essential for making peace last.

Miriam Coronel Ferrer, Co-Founder of Southeast Asian Women Peace Mediators explains how women are building bridges and finding shared solutions within conflicts.

To view all of the responses from women experts and practitioners who are attending The Berlin Moot, click here.

To mark International Women's Day, we hosted a YouTube live session together with Conciliation Resources where two of our gender experts, Claudia Cruz Almeida, who works with women ex-combatants at the Berghof Foundation, and Esther Hodges, who focuses on the Women, Peace and Security agenda at Conciliation Resources, discussed what peacebuilding organisations can do to foster gender equality within peace processes.

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