Colloquium 2010 - Women Moderating Extremism
***Note: The special episode of Dan Rather Reports filmed during Colloquium 2010 and featuring Inclusive Security Chair Ambassador Swanee Hunt and members of the Women Waging Peace Network aired on HDNet March 2, 2010.
Preview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9qCoB6ubA.
More details: http://www.hd.net/danrather.html***
Read the recommendations produced during this year's Colloquium:
Moderating extremism in Bosnia
Moderating extremism in Lebanon
Moderating extremism in Pakistan
Moderating extremism in Rwanda
From January 8–21, 20 women leaders from Bosnia, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Rwanda traveled to Cambridge, MA, and Washington, DC to learn from one another’s experiences working to moderate violent extremism and to advocate to US policymakers. The visiting leaders included government representatives, civil society leaders, journalists, and academics, with expertise ranging from Pakistani national defense strategies to Rwandan post-conflict reconciliation.
Why Women Moderating Extremism?
Countering extremism is now one of the primary goals of the foreign policy of the United States and other NATO countries. While traditional counterintelligence strategies have worked in some contexts, in others they have been costly in lives lost, money spent, and damage to national reputations. Decision makers in the United States and its allied countries have rarely considered the particular contributions that women in leadership positions make to moderating extremist voices and activities. These two weeks of Inclusive Security consultations and events represent the first time that such a large number of women leaders have gathered to exchange success stories on this topic and advocate to decision makers in the United States.
Two Weeks of Learning and Advocacy
A week of speaking, teaching, and public events in Cambridge included the Women and Security Executive Program and courses at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; a lunch discussion with Tad Oelstrom, director of Harvard’s National Security Program, and Cynthia Enloe, director of Clark University’s Women Studies Program; a lunch and discussion with Sanam Anderlini, author of Women Building Peace: What They Do, Why it Matters; a message management session with Harvard University’s National Security and Nieman Fellows; and the public event Women Moderating Extremism, featuring a speaker from each of the four conflict regions.
Time in Washington, DC included sessions with Inclusive Security staff and outside experts on approaches to increasing women’s leadership in peacebuilding and drew on Inclusive Security’s training curriculum. Participants discussed relevant examples from their own work, identified common challenges and tactics, and drafted policy recommendations to increase the contributions of women in moderating extremism and building sustainable peace in their regions. Inclusive Security staff, along with other experts from US government and military, foreign governments, private security contractors, regional security organizations, and non-governmental organizations, helped to refine the
recommendations.
Eighteen Advocacy Meetings
The visiting leaders then presented their final recommendations to decision makers over the course of 18 meetings in Washington. They met with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL); senior officials at the State Department (including Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Jack Lew), and the U.S. Agency for International Development; and others. The women also met with assistants to Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.
Requests for increased U.S. cooperation ranged from new and regular meetings between U.S. intelligence services and women in conflict regions including Pakistan, to increased training of women leaders and university exchange programs with Lebanon. Other recommendations included expanded use of curricula promoting tolerance and peaceful coexistence in Rwanda and engaging women in public information campaigns to reduce the flow and use of small arms in Bosnia.
Coverage by US and International Media
Media coverage featuring Colloquium participants included a special episode of a Dan Rather Reports television program recorded at The Newseum, Voice of America (Pakistani, Bosnian, and Rwandan delegations), Radio Sawa (Lebanese delegation), National Public Radio, The Boston Globe (editorial), GlobalPost, and the Enough blog.
Annual Luncheon and other Public Events
The annual Policy Forum luncheon of nearly 500 DC policymakers and policy shapers featured Ambassador Swanee Hunt, chair of The Institute for Inclusive Security; Dan Rather, managing editor and global correspondent of Dan Rather Reports; and representatives from each of the four conflict regions. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams, chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative, and Canadian Senator Mobina Jaffer delivered remarks.
Three additional public events drew nearly 150 attendees to events at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and the United States Institute of Peace.