On 25 October, the UN Security Council held its yearly meeting on women, peace and security. It has been 18 years since the Security Council adopted resolution 1325, which called on the UN and the international community to include women and their rights and interests in work toward peace and security. The resolution also urged… Read more »
Category: Peacebuilding
Lessons from Camp David
Forty years ago, President Jimmy Carter orchestrated peace between Israel and Egypt; yet the conflict between Israel and Palestinians is further than ever from a solution. Those outcomes are closely linked. There are lessons for President Donald Trump to learn from Carter’s experience, if he is attentive.
What Became of the Norwegian Peacekeeping Forces?
For nearly 20 years, Norway has prioritized contributing to NATO-led operations over UN peacekeeping forces. At the same time, recent research shows that increased commitment to UN operations has a conflict-reducing effect. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the first Norwegian UN soldiers’ departure to Lebanon to serve in UNIFIL (the United Nations Interim… Read more »
U.N. Peacekeeping Really Can Be Effective. Here’s How We Tabulated This
Syria’s seven years of conflict have had devastating consequences, with hundreds of thousands of people dead and more than 4 million refugees. Would the story be different if the United Nations Security Council had managed to come to an agreement and deployed a peacekeeping operation (PKO) early in the conflict? Would a PKO have been… Read more »
Can Moon Jae-In Remove the Stumbling Blocks to Peace in Korea?
Donald Trump is the unknown factor in the South Korean president’s peace diplomacy. Friday 27 April 2018 was a new historic day for Korea. Even before he had completed the first year of his five-year term as president of South Korea, the 65-year-old human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in succeeded in holding a summit with the young… Read more »
A Path to Peace and Stability Through Food Aid
Constant war drove Fazle, his wife and four children away from their home and farm in the Khyber region of Pakistan eight years ago. They loved their home, but with all the shooting and the armed extremist groups, he had to leave or endure the death, destruction and instability that comes with war. But seven… Read more »
No Peace Without Women!
The recent #MeToo campaign was a watershed moment that has brought global attention to the issue of violence against women and has shown us how women continue to be objects of exploitation. Violence is manifested in so many different ways, from intimate partner violence, domestic violence, rape, honour killing to dowry and to sexual harassment… Read more »
The Beginning of a Peace Process in Afghanistan – Finally?
Is Afghanistan finally at a turning point – after so many disappointments and wasted opportunities? At the Kabul Process II conference on 28 February, President Ashraf Ghani proposed to launch peace talks with the Taliban without preconditions, offering to recognize the Taliban as a legitimate political group, and presenting a number of significant proposals to… Read more »
Theses on Peacemaking in Afghanistan: a Manifesto
Author’s Note: Royalist and republican, Khalqi and Parchami, Soviet Union and the West, communist and Islamist, mujahid and Talib, Hanafi and takfiri, al Qaeda and America, warlord and technocrat, Pashtun and non-Pashtun, Islamic Emirate and Islamic State, KGB, ISI, and CIA – all have for decades carried on an uninterrupted struggle in Afghanistan. Attempts to… Read more »
Women’s Inclusion in the Peace Process in Mali
Women have been marginalized throughout the Malian peace process and their inclusion has received little priority, contrary to UN Security Council resolutions on the involvement of women in peace processes. Although legislation and policy frameworks promoting their inclusion are in place, implementation is lagging behind. Despite difficulties in the Malian peace process, there are opportunities… Read more »