Women Leading Nonviolent Movements
To celebrate National Women’s History Month, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the 2020 One Woman, One Vote Festival will host an intergenerational discussion among women nonviolent activists.
As a national, nonpartisan, independent Institute, the U.S. Institute of Peace draws on our exceptional convening power to create opportunities for diverse audiences to exchange knowledge, experiences, and ideas necessary for creative solutions to difficult challenges. We serve as an important, neutral platform for bringing together government and nongovernment, diplomacy, security, and development actors, and participants across political views. The Institute’s events help shape public policy and priorities to advance peaceful solutions to conflict and strengthen international security.
To celebrate National Women’s History Month, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the 2020 One Woman, One Vote Festival will host an intergenerational discussion among women nonviolent activists.
The United States Institute of Peace, the Inter-American Dialogue, and the Woodrow Wilson Center hosted a conversation with three prominent members of the Colombian Senate’s Peace Commission.
A recent survey on the prevalence of sexual violence against women in the armed conflict in Colombia, supported by Oxfam, provides quantitative information for the period 2010-2015. An analysis of its findings is crucial to understand how to address the problem in the context of transitional justice as part of a peace process. The event will discuss the survey, inclusion of provisions addressing sexual violence in the Colombian government-FARC peace agreement, and the challenges of implementation as a new government is about to take office in Colombia.
Too often, peace processes only include dueling parties—leaving women; religious, indigenous, and ethnic groups; youth; and survivors of violence excluded from critical discussions that shape the future landscape of a country. Yet, sidelining their voices often results in a resurgence of conflict and fails to achieve comprehensive or sustainable peace.
With the composition of Colombia’s next Congress set, jockeying and coalition-building among the main candidates is fully underway ahead of the May 27 presidential polls. The outcome will have important implications for the precarious implementation of the 2016 FARC peace accord, which has yet to tackle key political and agrarian reforms, and the next president will also have to chart a way forward for the dialogues with the ELN as talks in Quito race against the clock to design a new indefinite bilateral ceasefire and cement the parameters for public participation in future negotiations.
The government’s peace accord with the former FARC rebels presents a historic opportunity to work towards the construction of a democratic Colombia that addresses the wrongs of the past and charts a new course toward equality, justice, and prosperity. At the heart of this process are human rights defenders and civil society organizations, who play a vital role in addressing the underlying economic and social root causes of violence and holding stakeholders accountable to the commitments of the accords.
Reparations for victims and reintegration of combatants are key provisions of Colombian law and of the year-old peace agreement that ended a half century of war between the government and the country’s largest rebel group. The effect of the conflict and how the government is fulfilling its commitments was the focus of a discussion on October 31st at the U.S. Institute of Peace, co-hosted with the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Latin American Program.
On October 23, leaders from citizens’ campaigns in Guatemala, Ukraine and Burkina Faso explored how international actors can find synergy—and better curtail corruption—with grassroots movements.
New research highlights how communities use cohesion and social structures to non-violently influence armed groups—a capacity that governments and institutions often fail to recognize. On October 2, USIP convened a discussion on such community self-protection, and how policymaking might better support it in conflict zones such as in Syria or Afghanistan.
This event will not be held as scheduled. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please sign up for information about our next Burma event.