Women’s Engagement in Conflict Resolution Essential for Sustainable Peace

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Posted on Aug 01 2019 0 minutes read
Women’s Engagement in Conflict Resolution Essential for Sustainable Peace
After the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1991 women were excluded from decision-making processes related to reconciliation, peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction. Women did not take part in the Ta’if Accords that brought the civil war to a halt in 1991 or subsequent national dialogues. In 2010, the National Dialogue Committee, set up by then President Michel Suleiman, included 19 male representatives from the country’s major political parties, and no women participated in the sessions of the national dialogue.

Today, Lebanon continues to face internal and external insecurities, economic instability and political turmoil contributing to the country’s increased volatility. In an effort to promote women’s roles in conflict resolution and prevention, UN Women recently formed two local women’s mediation networks in Abbassiyeh and Tyre in South Lebanon that aim to promote women’s leadership in decision-making processes to more effectively engage women to resolve community-level conflicts. Two additional mediators’ networks will soon be established in Ain El Helweh and Shatila to ensure that women’s roles in conflict resolution are also amplified within Palestinian communities.

One of the participants from Tyre, Hanan Saleh, a university professor, says «peace is necessary for the renewal of society and its development and we, in Lebanon, are in need of internal peace before external peace. These trainings contribute to a culture of increased dialogue for more effective conflict resolution.» She further notes “to decrease tensions, [we need] to concentrate more on our collective energies and benefit from our diversity and different points of views so that our diverse thoughts are seen as richness [for our communities] and not as reasons for conflict.”

Women’s mediation networks respond to the priorities set forth in Lebanon’s first National Action Plan (NAP) on UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women’s meaningful participation in peace and security issues. The NAP 1325 is pending endorsement by the Council of Ministers.

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