Special Event: Women & Peacebuilding Discussion Forum News Deeply

Building on our reports for Peacebuilding Deeply in 2018, we hosted a special Discussion Forum on Women & Peacebuilding in association with the Permanent Mission of Ireland to the United Nations, looking at the politics of women’s participation in major peace talks.

There’s clear evidence that having women at the table enhances the success of negotiations and leads to longer-lasting peace agreements. Yet women still make up only 2% of chief mediators and just 9% of negotiators in major peace processes, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Drawing from cases of conflict and peacebuilding around the world, we examined the factors holding back women’s participation at all levels of the process.

Featured speakers:

- H.E. Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ireland’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and the Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women
- H.E. Ambassador Lang Yabou, Permanent Representative of The Gambia to the United Nations
- Mavic Cabrera Balleza, founder and CEO of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders
- Dr. Bilqis AbuOsba, assistant professor of political sciences and gender at Sana'a University and head of the Awam foundation for Development and Culture

Moderator:
- News Deeply’s CEO and Executive Editor Lara Setrakian