Gender, Power and Peacemaking in Africa

Presentation by Dr . Aili Mari Tripp, Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The event is co-sponsored by IFPRI, World Bank, and IFAD.
The presentation will look at why almost all post-conflict countries in Africa have double the rates of legislative representation of women compared with countries that have not undergone conflict. Moreover, these countries tend to have been more open to passing legislation and making constitutional changes relating to women. The end of major civil conflicts since the 1990s from South Africa to Namibia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia and Sierra Leone opened up new opportunities for women activists. The talk examines the broader international context of these changes, the role of women’s movements, and the opportunities for women that emerged with the end of conflict.
About the presenter: Aili Mari Tripp is Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently she is on leave as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Her teaching and research interests are in African politics, comparative politics, women and politics and gender studies in an international context. She is author of Women and Politics in Uganda (2000) and Changing the Rules: The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania (1997). She has a forthcoming book co-authored with Isabel Casimiro, Joy Kwesiga and Alice Mungwa entitled Women in Movement: Transformations in African Political Landscapes (Cambridge University Press). Dr. Tripp has edited with Myra Marx Ferree Global Feminism: Transnational Women's Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights (New York University Press, 2006) and three other volumes. She co-edits (with Kathleen Dolan) the journal Politics & Gender of the Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association. Dr. Tripp also co-edits a book series with Stanlie James on Women in Africa and the Diaspora for the University of Wisconsin Press.
Please RSVP to Lauren Pandolfelli at l.pandolfelli@cgiar.org