Arab women have a long and rich history as powerful agents for peace. As ongoing crises and a US foreign aid freeze devastate many countries in the region, women’s vital yet too often undervalued or marginalized leadership and active engagement is more important than ever.
That is the message of three women leaders from Syria, Sudan, and Yemen who came together to discuss the barriers they face and share urgent calls to action to support women on the ground in conflict and post-conflict contexts across the region. The virtual event was part of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security’s (GIWPS) newly-launched Middle East & North Africa Initiative, which aims to create a regional network of women peace advocates and leaders who are committed to the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda.
“Women are the builders of society, the builders of communities. Women are the ones who find solutions,” said Mariam Jalabi, co-founder of the Syrian Women’s Political Movement and the Representative of the Syrian Opposition Coalition to the United Nations. She was joined in conversation by Dr. Entisar Abdelsadig, a senior adviser on Sudan at Search for Common Ground, and Rasha Jarhum, a Yemini activist and co-founder and co-director of the Peace Track Initiative. Below are their key reflections and recommendations to enhance women’s engagement in peace processes and amplify the voices of women from the region on the global stage.
Key Reflections
- Embedded patriarchal and military systems pose significant, unique and ongoing obstacles for women peacebuilders in Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. Women have responded in a myriad of ways, including setting up their own organizing groups—there are more than 60 Sudanese women groups, for example—that create an avenue to participate and navigate political processes despite enormous difficulties.
- The freeze on US foreign aid as well as further widespread cuts to overseas development assistance (ODA) has had an immediate and devastating impact. USAID funding to Yemen accounted for one-third of the country’s humanitarian aid and was the biggest donor to Sudan for humanitarian aid and other resources.
- Civic spaces are shrinking amid repressive laws and mounting backlash to gender, justice and equality. Civil society organizations in Yemen, for example, face increasing challenges, from bureaucratic processes that require approval for even the lowest-level activities to power outages that have caused water and supply shortages and lead people to demonstrate in the streets demanding basic rights and services.
- Ongoing and long-term conflict has taken an exhaustive toll. A lack of financial resources and precarious physical safety has forced many peacebuilders to focus more on their own livelihoods and securing food for themselves and their families than continuing to advocate, organize, and participate in peacebuilding at the local level.
Key Recommendations
- Reframe the narrative to bring more women from the grassroots level into the international arena. This means using their language and what they know from their everyday existence as the blueprint for solutions. Many women working at the local level are not familiar with the WPS Agenda or United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). Their priorities are making sure they have access to food and caring for their families. Rather than focusing on filling in those knowledge gaps, international stakeholders, including women’s groups, must meet them where they are at, ask what they need, and give them the space to share what is best for their communities.
- Women need to be connected in order to learn from one another, sharing lessons without borders and strengthening international forums with women peacebuilders in other nations and in international networks in order to broaden participation to include those who might have previously lacked the framework or familiarity to join in peacebuilding at the local level. The Feminist Peace Roadmap developed in Yemen in 2019 provided a unified and comprehensive framework for women’s inclusion in peace processes, which can be replicated. There is an opportunity in Syria for a collaborative effort in order to create something new from the beginning.
- Sustainable peace goes hand-in-hand with economic empowerment, and there must be long-term investment in economic stability that will not be impacted by sudden and dire decisions—like the freezing of US foreign aid—in order for women, in particular, to be able to fully participate in the political process. This includes a plan for lifting sanctions that disproportionately impact women and civil society actors. Nine-five percent of Syrian women live below the poverty line. Women comprise more than 70 percent of the informal economy in Sudan, making it challenging to save money, particularly as a result of widespread looting. Women are also the primary caregivers and are not presented with feasible opportunities to leave their families and participate in peacebuilding at higher levels.
- Young people hold the keys to the future and must be empowered and supported by the international community via capacity building, financial resources and media attention. Young Sudanese women and men played a big role in the peaceful protests in 2019. Now the younger generations are organizing themselves into civil society groups and focusing on capacity building and are in dialogue with each other about what roles they want to play in Sudan’s future. They’ve reached out to other older and established women’s groups as well on the shared agenda for women in Sudan.
Watch the full event and learn more about GIWPS’ Middle East & North Africa Initiative.
