When Women Stand Together as One: the Power of Women’s Grassroots Peace Movements

Violent conflicts remain the single most deadly social phenomenon and impediment to development in Africa. In the last two and a half decades, over 4 million people have been killed in violent conflicts in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Chad, Angola, Sudan, Uganda, the Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire. Several other states including Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Cameroon, Niger, Guinea Bissau, and The Gambia are also paying the high price of violence. As in my home country of Liberia, many of these conflicts stem from a politics of exclusion and the failure to meet people’s basic human security needs.