Women, Peace and Security

At 42, Samantha Power became the youngest person to be appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Now, she is a powerful force in steering America’s foreign policy and dictating intervention abroad.

The concept of sustaining peace—as enshrined in the identical General Assembly/Security Council resolutions of April 27, 2016—offers a new consensus and vision for the UN’s work, in which prevention plays a central role. Prevention continues, however, to be defined negatively, largely by its relationship to conflict rather than by a proactive, nationally owned strategy for averting the outbreak of conflict and sustaining peace.

Across peace and development initiatives, the exclusion of women comes at a high cost. Without women’s equal participation, peace agreements are more fragile, peacekeeping missions are less credible and safe, and economies are less prosperous.

As atrocities mount in South Sudan, with reports of government and non-government soldiers killing and raping, the UK is preparing to send peacekeeping troops there.

Abu Chiad boasted about beheading infidels, raping women and children and slaughtering in the name of Islam. Speaking from a prison in the city of Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, he told Dr. Jan Kizilhan that these acts would get him to heaven.

The Global Network of Women Peacebuilders is pleased to announce its second annual Cora Weiss Fellowship for Young Women Peacebuilders.