Women have played groundbreaking roles in Colombia’s peace process between the government and the country’s largest rebel group, the FARC. With a peace agreement in sight and on the occasion of International Women’s Day, the U.S. Institute of Peace held an event on March 8 that briefed on the status of women in peace processes, with a focus on the Colombia case. The discussion was co-sponsored by USIP’s Colombia Peace Forum and the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum.

Colombia-Peace
Pictured from left to right, Kathleen Kuehnast, Ambassador Kåre R. Aas, Virginia M. Bouvier, Carla Koppell

The panelists discussed the United Nations Security Council Resolutions that have called for engaging women in peace processes as a matter of international security, and the long-term efforts to broaden and support initiatives by women and other sectors of civil society as the key to the sustainability of peace.

Continue the conversation on Twitter with #CPRF.

Participants

Nancy Lindborg
President, U.S. Institute of Peace

Ambassador Kåre R. Aas
Ambassador of Norway to the United States

Carla Koppell
Vice President, Applied Conflict Transformation, U.S. Institute of Peace

Kathleen Kuehnast
Senior Gender Advisor, U.S. Institute of Peace

Virginia M. Bouvier
Senior Advisor for Peace Processes, U.S. Institute of Peace

The Colombia Peace Forum is a USIP-based series of roundtables, established after peace talks began in 2012. The forum produces creative analysis of the conflict that informs the thinking of U.S. and Colombian policymakers and opinion leaders. It convenes academics, Colombia specialists and government officials for discussions with those often left out of formal peace processes, such as women, victims and ethnic communities. 

The Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum has provided a monthly platform in Washington since 1999 for highlighting innovative and constructive methods of conflict resolution. The forum aims to (1) provide information from a wide variety of perspectives; (2) explore possible solutions to complex conflicts; and (3) provide a secure venue for stakeholders from various disciplines to engage in cross-sector and multi-track problem-solving. The forum is traditionally hosted at Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and is organized by the Conflict Management Program in conjunction with Search for Common Ground. The forum includes  a consortium of organizations that specialize in conflict resolution and/or public policy formulation: Search For Common Ground; the Alliance for Peacebuilding: American University’s International Peace and Conflict Resolution Program; George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution; Georgetown University’s Conflict Resolution Program; Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies’ Conflict Management Program; Partners for Democratic Change; the United States Institute of Peace; and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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