Women, peace and security in the time of corona

With over 70% of the global healthcare workforce made up of women and many more shouldering caregiving roles, women are at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19, but the consequences and new realities of our world have gendered implications that need to be understood. Sanam Naraghi Anderlini MBE calls our attention to these impacts, the realities of women living this pandemic, and the relevance of the women, peace and security agenda now more than ever

Powered by caring: daily struggles to keep the WPS Agenda alive. Interview with Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini

This interview originated from the encounter between the guest editors of the Special Issue and Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini during the activities of the project “Enhancing Women’s Participation in Peace and Security (WEPPS)”. The interview was held via Zoom on the afternoon of October 1, 2021. At the time, the international community was dealing with the consequences of the sudden US withdrawal from Afghanistan that occurred on August 31. Sanam Naraghi Anderlini is a British-Iranian activist and researcher who has acquired about twenty-five years of experience in the field of women, peace and security. Having participated as a civil society leader to the drafting of UNSC Resolution 1325, she has worked in several projects and initiatives concerning women’s participation to peacebuilding processes. Founder and Executive Director of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), she spearheads the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL). She is the author of Women Building Peace, What they do, Why it Matters (Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2007). In 2011, she was appointed as the first Senior Expert on Gender and Inclusion on the UN Mediation Standby Team. She has been working in a number of conflict situations in different regions of the world (e.g. Somalia, Libya, Syria, Nepal). In 2019, she joined the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) as Director of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security. In 2020, she was awarded an MBE for her services to International peacebuilding and Women’s Rights

Powered by caring: daily struggles to keep the WPS Agenda alive. Interview with Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini

The interview originated from the encounter between the Guest Editors and Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini during the activities of the project “Enhancing Women’s Participation in Peace and Security (WEPPS)”. The interview was held via Zoom on the afternoon of October 1, 2021. At the time, the international community was dealing with the consequences of the sudden US withdrawal from Afghanistan that occurred on August 31

Prevenir los conflictos transformar la justicia garantizar la paz

La Entidad de las Naciones Unidas para la Igualdad de Género y el Empoderamiento de las Mujeres (ONU Mujeres), en coordinación con los Gobiernos de El Salvador y Suecia, lanzaron a nivel regional el estudio mundial “Prevenir los conflictos, transformar la justicia, garantizar la paz”, informe sobre la aplicación de la Resolución 1325, que pone en relevancia la participación de las mujeres en la prevención, gestión y solución de conflictos. Según el informe, las mujeres y las niñas se convierten en la población más afectada, ya que se ven expuestas a experimentar violencia sexual y de género. En el año 2000 el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas elaboró la resolución 1325 donde destaca la participación de las mujeres, como garantes de la igualdad, en la prevención y solución de conflictos, la consolidación y el mantenimiento de la paz y la seguridad de los países. El estudio mundial fortalece y reconoce el poder de la intervención de las mujeres en la construcción de la paz, asimismo, demuestra que la inclusión de las mujeres mejora la eficacia en la asistencia humanitaria, fortalece los esfuerzos en la consolidación de la paz y la recuperación económica de los países. Con este lanzamiento, ONU Mujeres promueve la implementación de esta resolución en los países del istmo, con énfasis en los del Triángulo Norte. Por su parte, los gobiernos de El Salvador y Suecia muestran su compromiso, este último como socio estratégico, a fin de fortalecer los esfuerzos para garantizar la paz y la seguridad, sobre todo para las mujeres y niñas, quienes son las principales víctimas en estos contextos

Corona-diary: Entry 3

It’s the uncertainty that makes this hard. If we knew we had a week, a month, or three and that then life would be back to normal, we’d be able to manage better. It would be like a mini-hiatus from daily life, a chance to get to the stockpile of things on the back burner that never get done. But we just don’t know how long it will last. In the aftermath, normality may be something beyond our imagination now

Women and Peace through Justice

Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini reflects on the experiences of women who have survived war and its atrocities and are working for peace and a social reconstruction process. She argues that indictment of war criminals alone does not address the immediate and long-term needs of the maimed and the raped, the orphans and the AIDS carriers. Justice can include reparations or support and care, access to health care and education, opportunities to become skilled and employed. But at the very minimum it means living free of discrimination and ostracism, beyond their victimhood, and having the right to a dignified life. Development (2005) 48, 103–110. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100154

The securitisation of NGOs post-9/11

This article argues that the securitisation of an issue can involve not only negative, exclusionary and repressive extraordinary measures but also more positive, inclusionary and productive strategies of engagement. It also argues that such bifurcated strategies of security can evoke a spectrum of responses that sets limits on the process of securitisation. It examines these two arguments through the lens of the securitisation of development NGOs post-9/11. Development NGOs have become associated as a potential ‘second-order’ security issue related to the macro-securitisation of the War on Terror. After the launch of President Bush's War on Terror, US and allied governments shifted their approach to development NGOs from one of enthusiastically courting them as co-producers of development and security to an approach that cast greater suspicion on their activities. Aware that development NGOs still had a positive role to play in development and security, Western governments adopted a bifurcated strategy of containment and engagement towards development NGOs. State attempts to restrict development NGOs have evoked a spectrum of responses, ranging from ready compliance to outright resistance that has led to only partial success in securitising development NGOs

The Women, Peace and Security Agenda: time to gild the cracks?

This Special Issue aims at further enriching the debate on WPS, by collecting articles that critically shed light on and explore some of the main cracks of the WPS Agenda. Adopting a multidisciplinary stance, it advances original theoretical and practical tools and strategies in order to gild the cracks and advance the discussion on the most salient gender-related aspects concerning international security. Also, it tries to integrate, or at least to fruitfully complement, academic and non-academic knowledge on the WPS Agenda, involving in various ways scholars, practitioners, experts and activists