Women in Armed Conflict Workshop

Alice Nderitu is developing a manual for women community mediators of armed conflict in Africa. In August, the Centre and Alice Nderitu organized a workshop with 20 women from six African countries (Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)) who are engaged in community-level mediation, international experts from the field of women, peace and security, and academics from the University of Nairobi and Zimbabwe, in order to review the draft manual and provide input and feedback. The final manual will be piloted in November.

The objectives of the manual are to train women as community-level mediators of peace through pluralism; develop a framework from which to create a pluralistic inclusive culture and practice of women working as mediators of armed conflict at the community level; and develop policy recommendations aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of women mediating peace using a pluralistic approach to be shared with among others.

The participants (approximately 20) were largely women from the African countries mentioned above who work in the field of women, peace and security as well as practitioners, including representatives from the National Cohesion and Integration Commission in Kenya. Over the course of the workshop, the group reviewed the draft manual and provided input and feedback.