Women Bridging Divides for a Secure World - January 2012

From January 6-13, 2012, The Institute for Inclusive Security hosted women leaders working to connect across ethnic, religious, or other divides for its 13th annual Colloquium. Inclusive Security welcomed 11 women leaders from the Institute’s six conflict focal areas: Afghanistan, Israel, Pakistan, Palestine, South Sudan, and Sudan to Cambridge, MA. Representing coalitions supported by the Institute, the women leaders came together for a week of teaching, speaking, and exchange at Harvard University.

These expert peacebuilders, including government officials, heads of nongovernmental organizations, and community activists, shared numerous stories that highlighted their respective experiences mobilizing for collective action around peace and security issues. Among others: 

• Afghan participants told of their participation in the December 2011 Bonn Conference.
• Israeli participants discussed their coalition’s efforts to increase the influence of women in the security sector.
• Pakistani participants presented on the formation and structure of Aman-o-Nisa, a national coalition of Pakistani women dedicated to moderating extremism.
• South Sudanese and Sudanese participants described the cross-border coalition that leveraged women’s voices in the 2008 Oslo donor conference and the 2010 elections in Sudan.

During the week of activity, several current and former journalists—including several Nieman Fellows—took part in role-play exercises during which the peacebuilders practiced speaking to the media. The women leaders presented key life experiences that have influenced their work during the "Inclusive Security" course taught at the Harvard Kennedy School by Ambassador Swanee Hunt, the Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy and Inclusive Security's chair. They also engaged with a dozen Harvard National Security Fellows to practice delivering advocacy messages to military officials in different mock settings.
 
Among other activities, the women spent time in their country delegations reflecting on lessons learned from their collective advocacy and coalition efforts, including their collaborations with the Institute. In a plenary session, the women experts discussed what factors enable them to mobilize for collective advocacy and build coalitions. (Inclusive Security is developing a publication based on these presentations, interviews with the women, and other research, to be published later this year on key strategies for collective action and building coalitions.)

On January 11, Ambassador Hunt joined six of the women at the John F. Kennedy, Jr. Forum at the Harvard Kennedy School for the public event “Why Women Won the Nobel Peace Prize.” Video of the event is available here: http://www.iop.harvard.edu/Multimedia-Center/All-Videos/Why-Women-Won-the-Nobel-Prize. Read more about the Forum event here.

Building on the previous day’s conversations, external facilitator Paula Green, founder and senior fellow of the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding, joined on Thursday, January 12, to discuss the challenges the women face in their coalitions, and approaches for overcoming these challenges.

For more information about Inclusive Security's annual Colloquium events, please contact Allison Shean.