In countries throughout Africa, civil society organizations work to prevent, stop, and recover from numerous conflicts, such as: the haunting memories and looming fears of genocide in Central Africa; violent clashes in West Africa; decades-old civil war in Sudan; various foreign incursions into the Democratic Republic of the Congo; border clashes between Ethiopia and Eritrea; and post-apartheid racial tension in South Africa. The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) is a Durban-based conflict management NGO established in 1992 to further negotiation and conflict resolution in South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy. Since then, its focus has broadened, addressing issues throughout the continent and offering innovative and effective solutions to these challenges.

Nigerian Kemi Ogunsanya is a senior conflict resolution training officer at ACCORD. An attorney, she is skilled in negotiation, mediation, and facilitation. Kemi has conducted conflict resolution training for women’s groups in many countries, including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, South Africa, and Sudan. Her expertise extends beyond conflict management to conflict prevention, democracy building, and human rights protection. In this broad context, she has organized training programs and curricula for numerous sectors of civil society, including domestic observers and monitors in Nigeria in preparation for national elections; public health officials in the South African province of Kwa-Zulu Natal; and South African military, police, and civilian peacekeepers stationed in Harare, Zimbabwe. During the Sun City peace talks—which brought together Congolese representatives from government, political parties, rebel groups, and civil society—she provided conflict resolution and negotiation training to women participants. In the following interview, Kemi talks about her experiences at those Sun City talks and the importance of including women in conflict resolution and peace-building efforts.

A Woman’s Voice
by Kemi Ogunsanya

I became interested in helping women when I realized that so many don’t have a voice, even in the courts. Though I’m a lawyer, I didn’t enjoy litigation. I preferred working in alternative dispute resolution—mediation and negotiation. I decided to leave my litigation practice and moved into the non-governmental sector to work with civil society.

When I joined ACCORD and relocated to South Africa, I became interested in the role women play in peace building. In my work with South African women, I shared their challenges during apartheid, as well as their victories in the new, democratic South Africa, which was launched in 1994. This really inspired my work with women peace builders across the continent. As ACCORD has expanded, we’ve hosted groups of women from other parts of Africa; these programs include a visit to the South African Parliament and very helpful discussion sessions with women parliamentarians and representatives of women’s NGOs. Recognizing this type of work, President Thabo Mbeki has urged the African National Congress Women’s Wing to share “best practices” from the South African experience and address issues affecting women throughout the continent. South African women, among others, organized to prevent the stoning of Amina Lawal, the Nigerian woman sentenced to death for committing adultery.

Working with women from the north and south of Sudan, I learned that many wanted to participate in conflict negotiations, and that women in affected communities needed to be represented at the peace talks. So often, after suffering terribly in war and violent conflict, women aren’t invited to the negotiation table. But I found that most of these women lacked skills in negotiation and mediation. They needed to be trained in order to participate effectively in peace processes. Since then, many organizations have invited ACCORD (and me) to train women in mediation and negotiation.

UN Security Resolution 1325: Women in Peace Building
[United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 was passed in 2000; it calls for the inclusion of women throughout all stages of the peace process.] Around the world, women are now strategizing ways to implement the resolution. How can 1325 be more than just a piece of paper? How can it work for us? When conflicts end, so often the same men who started the war also want to shape the peace. Women are not recognized. Their needs are not acknowledged. And that’s what women are trying to remedy when they demand to participate in peace negotiations: They want their voices to be heard. Part of their peace work is advocacy.

How can 1325 be more than just a piece of paper? How can it work for us?

As part of our advocacy work, we trained government ministers responsible for gender affairs in the Horn of Africa in July 2002. The regional governing structure is the Intergovernmental Authority for Development; IGAD covers Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda. The IGAD Women’s Desk hosted the training exercise as part of the second regular meeting of ministers responsible for gender affairs. This training fell under their mandate as the Institutional Mechanism on Gender Mainstreaming, and it was designed to assist them with “engendering” policy and planning processes. To our surprise, we had 50 participants—31 women and 29 men. At the ministerial meeting after the training, the Sudanese ministers for gender and development expressed their gratitude and said that, because of what they had learned, for the first time they would include a woman in the Sudanese delegation to the negotiations! That was a victory for us—it meant the training had an impact.

Training men in gender equality is the first step in introducing them to the importance of women’s participation in peace processes and the mainstreaming of women at all levels of decision making. It’s so important to help men understand the importance of women in peace work, because we can’t enter the field in isolation from the men; we have to get them on board as well. We aim to convince rather than forcibly convert them. Women have to explain, “We’re not saying you cannot bring about peace, but listen to our side of the story. This is what we need.”

Women have to explain, “We’re not saying you cannot bring about peace, but listen to our side of the story. This is what we need.”

Some women leaders have entered government to represent the interests of other women. These leaders ensure that at least one person will speak on women’s behalf. Too often, though, when women are brought into government, they adopt the male conventions—they’re swallowed by the system. This is where women in civil society come in. They keep monitoring to make sure representatives are truly addressing people’s needs. If the women in government are not acting in the best interests of their constituents, women in civil society are there to remind them—and other voters. It’s not only policymakers we need to influence, but the population as a whole. To do this, women must work through the media, and through advocacy and lobbying groups, to press for the inclusion of women’s interests in government. This worked in South Africa. Women’s roles increased through negotiations, mediation, advocacy, and lobbying.

Uganda is another great example—I love what they did. In 1996, during the first general elections after many years of military rule, political candidates were scrounging for votes. Women publicly insisted that, as 51 percent of the population, they needed to be recognized politically. Through the media, the women openly declared that in order to get women’s votes the presidential candidates would have to support women’s involvement and participation in governance and decision making. It worked! Policies were put in place to ensure women’s participation throughout the system. By law, women must now compose 30 percent at all levels of government, and the minimum qualification for women’s participation in governance is a university degree or equivalent. Now Uganda has the second highest percentage of African women in governance (after South Africa), and it elected the first female vice-president in Africa. Ugandan women are a model, organizing to shape the system.

Democratic Republic of the Congo
Most of my work really excites me, but a highlight of my career was training women during the Inter-Congolese Dialogues held in Sun City in April 2002. We hadn’t planned to train these women. My directors wanted to train the Congolese rebels for the talks, but the rebels refused. So I asked, “What about the women? Can’t we bring the women together?” I knew the women wanted to learn negotiation and mediation skills. They were asking, “You want to train the rebels—what about us?” So ACCORD agreed. Some of the women were from rebel groups. Some were businesswomen. Others came from government, civil society, and organized religion.

Women have to be strong. Women have to be unified. And when they are, their voices become prominent, recognised, appreciated, and listened to in times of war and peace. But we wondered how the Congolese women would be able to work together. Most of the cities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are tenuously connected, and the war has displaced so many. Would they be able to communicate? This was really a great opportunity to work with the women as a group. When we started, some of them didn’t understand the ongoing negotiations. They asked, “What is this ‘negotiation?’ I don’t feel it. And I don’t see it in my daily food. I don’t see it in the way things are. What are these negotiations all about?”

We started by discussing how to set up an umbrella organization for women to come together and work as one. Finally, we got to the point where we could address negotiations. We talked about how psychological attachments and labels shouldn’t be brought to the negotiation table. Parties in negotiations shouldn’t address opponents as “aggressors” or “rebels.” This upset some of the women, as they regarded the rebels as thieves and crooks. But we—the trainers—said no, all parties should be addressed with respect. We explained that when representatives come to the negotiation table, they are probably ready to stop the war—and this is in itself an achievement. This changed their mindset—it helped them see the negotiation process in a positive way.

Sadly, in the end, women were not recognized as part of the formal negotiation team. This was very painful. We all had badges, and the women were considered “advisers” to the Dialogue. Resolution 1325 says that women can advise negotiators, but the negotiation teams are not obliged to allow the women seats at the table. The women were not given authority to speak, except during Women’s Day, when they urged the men to reach peaceful solutions to end the war in the DRC through a play they performed, portraying the suffering of women and children. I was disheartened, because we’ve always thought of 1325 as such a victory.

The voices of women must be heard.

These are the continued challenges women are facing—not only in the DRC, but in many other countries as well. It’s our duty to become more involved in government. Policymakers need our help. If we don’t express our views, if we leave a gulf between our representatives and us, it’s not only the policymakers’ fault for their failure to represent us accurately. This advocacy needs to occur at all levels: local, municipal, provincial, and national. The voices of women must be heard.

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