|
Peacebuilding processes provide a critical opportunity to reshape the political, security and broader socio-economic landscape of a nation. However, women’s participation in mitigating conflicts, mediating disputes and building trust - from the community to the national level -have long been neglected in processes to building peace. This neglect can establish a pattern of marginalization that lasts long into the post-conflict period. Five UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009) and 1960 (2010) and the United Nations Secretary General's reports on mediation support (2009) and women's participation in peace-building (2010) have repeatedly called for the inclusion of greater numbers of women in peace processes as well as in negotiations and mediations. Women's participation in peacemaking is not only a matter of gender equality. Women are crucial partners in shoring up three pillars of lasting peace: economic recovery, social cohesion and political legitimacy.
Inter-tribal and inter-ethnic conflicts are prevalent in South Sudan and women and children continue to bear the brunt of these with horrendous episodes of sexual violations.The failure to engage women in peacebuilding at all levels undermines women and men’s abilities to recover from conflict and rebuild their communities. Over the last decade, women have insisted with growing conviction that they have much to offer, and much to gain, from engaging in conflict prevention, reconciliation and peacebuilding.
In response to the call to strengthen women's representation and participation in mediation and peace processes and with the goal of improving women’s peace and security, UN Women in South Sudan supported the engagement and capacity building of women in peacebuilding, mediation and conflict resolution at the community levels by organizing a workshop on peacebuilding and conflict resolution for rural women in April 2013. The workshop was aimed at enabling rural women to (1) identify tools for helping them understand conflict, its causes and types (2) conduct their community conflict analysis (3) demonstrate skills for women in peacebuilding at personal and social level (4) identify existing local conflict resolution mechanisms in their community and (4) envision a sustained peaceful relations in their community. During the workshop, the 30 rural women participants also identified many frequent conflict drivers but emphasized that the youth in particular are involved as fighters in activities such as cattle raids in South Sudan and they too like women needed to be incorporated into active communities’ peacebuilding processes as both remain relevant to community development including making decisions for their own issues. UN Women is committed to strengthening the abilities of community women to effectively influence peacebuilding processes through training in peacebuilding and conflict transformation. This would also include encouraging partnership with the youth and also training the youth in peacebuilding to help them also gain skills in community conflict analysis, gender responsive peacebuilding and conflict prevention. The Youth will be targeted with training activities that will help them with personal level reflection so as to change the attitudes, values, perceptions or circumstances on the belief that peace is possible through the transformation of the attitudes and behaviours of individuals. They will also be encouraged to identify the local level institutions that the youth and women can transform to institutionalize non-violent modes of handling conflict within their community including gender based violence prevention.
Building the capacity of women and youth through the promotion of knowledge and skills acquisition in the areas of conflict analysis, mediation, negotiation, conciliation, advocacy and early warning will strengthen the participation of both women and youth as decision-makers at all levels and increase a culture of peace in their communities.
UN Women is therefore seeking services of an international consultant to train women and youth at community level on peacebuilding and conflict resolution.
This consultancy will contribute specifically to outcome 4.2 of the South Sudan Country Office’s 2013 AWP, which states as follows: Outcome: Gender equality advocates and community women effectively influence peacebuilding processes at the community level.
Methodology:
At the onset, the consultant and UN Women will have an inception meeting to clarify the terms of reference and plan the peacebuilding and conflict transformation trainings. UN Women will provide the consultant with all necessary and relevant background information.
|