Policy Day 2001
Working Group Discussion Topics

Women Waging Peace (Waging) is commissioning a report to demonstrate how including women in peace building processes improves the chances of averting or stopping violent conflict and sustaining peace. The report will recommend policies that promote women's contributions in strengthening international security. At the third annual Policy Day this year, the following discussion topics are designed to generate ideas and recommend policies that will be used in the development of the Waging report.

1. Toward "Inclusive Security" - Revisiting Concepts of International Security for the 21st Century

"The concept of 'inclusive security,' a diverse, citizen-driven approach to global stability, emphasizes women's agency, not their vulnerability. Rather than motivated by gender fairness, this concept is driven by efficiency: Women are crucial to inclusive security since they are often at the center of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), popular protests, electoral referendums, and other citizen-empowering movements whose influence has grown with the global spread of democracy. An inclusive security approach expands the array of tools available to police, military, and diplomatic structures by adding collaboration with local efforts to achieve peace." (Swanee Hunt and Cristina Posa, "Women Waging Peace," Foreign Policy, May/June 2001.)

• How can the work of Women Waging Peace delegates help to redefine security concepts?
• How can major international security policy shapers create the right links with women peacemakers, and how can those links create effective and sustainable policy change?
• How can the major institutions of international security decision making (i.e., the United Nations, regional security institutions, and national governments) take a lead in creating a new framework for inclusive security that utilizes women as a force for peace in world conflict areas?
• How are official delegations and negotiating teams selected? What skills are required of negotiators? How can women gain access to that process?

2. Policy Creation and Implementation

"Grounding policy in sober and careful reflections on the historical record and current trends can provide a sensible basis for decision making and action. Policymaking is also a learning process in which decision makers are expected to make and benefit from certain mistakes. Efforts by policymakers are also often well meaning as they endeavor to uniquely grapple with serious crisis and complex regional settings. But even when policymaking is not hurried and a reactive process, decisions, especially on major issues, are made in a politically charged context�"(Lenard J. Cohen, Serpent in the Bosom: The Rise and Fall of Slobodan Milosevic, 2000.)

• What are the biggest obstacles to women's participation and gender equity at the decision-making level?
• What would policymakers need to see in order to be persuaded and convinced? What changes minds at the policy level and how should women peace builders craft and deliver their message?
• What are the most specific and concrete policy recommendations for the inclusion of women?
• How do we ensure that policy recommendations are implemented? Official documents (e.g., UN Security Council Resolution 1325) exist already - how do we monitor implementation and provide oversight?

3. Effective Advocacy - Amplifying the Voices of Women Peacemakers

"In the course of mobilizing and advocating for the right to participate in the peace-building process, many women have also formed strategic partnerships with international institutions and non-governmental organizations� These examples of partnerships are all part of a growing movement that is driving women's advocacy for greater participation in decision-making processes related to peace. Ultimately, however, the challenge of ensuring women's equal participation requires a combination of strategies that stress political will, partnerships, and continued activism among women in all arenas. The responsibility for opening new spaces for women's participation is one that must be shared by the various actors who command political clout and influence over the course of peace negotiations at national, regional and international levels." (Sanam Anderlini, Women at the Peace Table, 2000.)

• What specific skills and strategies can be developed and used by Women Waging Peace delegates to actively promote and advocate for the conflict resolution work they are already doing?
• How do we build the capacity of women peace builders to influence institutional decision-making?
• How do we bring local initiatives to the attention of actors at the national and international level? How do we increase policymakers' awareness of the crucial issues that face societies in conflict?
• What is the role of outsiders (i.e., media, academics, funders, international development agencies, etc.) in focusing attention on the role of women in these situations?

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