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Welcome, Caramanica Ha, as the third panellist,

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Ramona is a senior strategic adviser to women mediators across the Commonwealth and at work at Conciliation Resources.

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She's a peace activist and a development practitioner. She's a founder and director of Women for Peace and Participation,

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an organisation providing platforms for communities in conflict regions and diaspora communities in UK and Europe.

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He's worked working key positions, including in the U.N., USAID and jails and the High Council, High Peace Council of Afghanistan.

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And finally, in recognition of her work, she can for peace. Romano was recognised by the U.N. and Peace Network as a role model for peace 2012.

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Thank you very much, everyone. And hello, everyone. Very glad to be amongst you all and contributing to this very important discussion.

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I want to start with a very short story, and it may be an example from my work.

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Some years ago in a meeting with a group of four women and young girls in Kandahar city of Afghanistan discussing

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the role of women in the peace process and in creating opportunities to support the process in Afghanistan.

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This was the time with not many,

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were not many supported or believed in the peace process and were against the idea of peace negotiations with the Taliban.

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But local communities, particularly women, believed in talks and the only way to end the decades long conflict.

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When asked what these women and girls were hoping from the process and what rules they had,

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they kept on saying, we believe the reality of our lives and we understand the politics of our reality.

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Living in a city bordering a country which is an important actor in a conflict

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with influence over the political and security uncertainties of the country.

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They say that we understand the core issues, the root causes of the conflict and the wonder how can politicians,

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regional and international governments do not understand?

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So today in the same and neither they listened to us, this is what they have been saying every time they spoke about this particular issue.

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So today in the same region, when speaking to women about what has changed, the answer is nothing has changed.

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Are we understood now even much, much better than before that?

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Everyone has been contradicting what they said by their actions and when talking about inclusion.

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They did not want to talk about inclusion forever topping their exclusion.

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And they kept on saying, we do not need others to include us.

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We are naturally included by being part of the society. We have suffered more than any other segment of the society and contributed more

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than anyone else towards the reconstruction and development of the country.

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And there is no question about whether we should be included or not.

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We need we need to think about how to stop our forced exclusion by all the various actors.

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Women in Afghanistan have been playing an important role in peacebuilding and mediation, and this is not a new phenomenon to the country.

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Many of us are aware about the process of reaching an agreement between the US and the Taliban.

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And many of us know the struggle of women to ensure their participation in the process and to have an impact and their interest in the

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interests of the Afghan people to be considered Afghan women and their supporters from many countries are the weakness of this struggle,

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especially in recent times. And we have seen that not only Afghan women,

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but women from all around the world raise their voices in support of not excluding Afghan women and their their perspectives,

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the agency of women and their alliances. It's increasingly becoming a threat for some.

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The fact that they bring facts into the light and that's to the peace table.

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And all of these have been challenging the unnecessary secrecy of the process and

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encouraging transparency around peace processes that not everyone is comfortable with.

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And which is, of course, I mean,

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a lot of secrecy around the peace processes is not in the favour of countries that societies as a whole, but in the interests of some.

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Firstly,

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many times we see that women's inclusion in the decision making and the rules and peace processes often fall in the formal and informal traps,

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sensitive, more sensitive, less sensitive, relevant and not relevant.

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Debates and discussions usually par hold those in a given context, particularly speaking about the example of Afghanistan.

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A generally comfortable with the idea of women peaceful building peace in informal settings unless they demand formal rules.

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But they don't understand the real and sustainable peace building up predominantly happens in the

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informal settings and these needs to be taken into account and integrated into the formal processes.

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May this peacebuilding at the community level, at the national level, are local peacemakers or civil society or local politicians.

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The important roles that women play in informal settings usually include confidence building,

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bridging the divide between communities and groups and within groups,

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addressing the needs of communities and providing them with enabling environment and space for constructive, constructive contributions.

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Informal processes are extremely essential for the formal processes to happen.

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But these informal processes are often used as a tool for excluding women, youth and other unheard actors from formal processes.

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And this is what has been the case in Afghanistan for all key actors involved to justify.

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Women are included. They are supported to participate in informal and side meetings.

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The purpose of which should be informing the formal process and enabling women to take part in the formal process.

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But the outcome of these informal meetings and engagements have been either fed into the formal discussions,

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not have they guaranteed women's participation in informal process and decision making.

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Symbolic representation is still used used to avoid any critiques.

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The formal is too sensitive. The informal is not formal enough.

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And then the stanzas standards of the two for the people and communities on the ground at the

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very grassroots level is completely different from the standards which we use internationally.

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Secondly, the creation of new spaces is another key element to avoid and fight against any sort of inclusion from experience,

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women are often very good in creating new spaces and focussing on what is often ignored in informal processes are very essential to these processes.

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Creating this space is a key for addressing the root causes of conflict in the

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way of getting consensus and why women initiate the creation of new spaces.

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It is due to their exclusion from existing structures and processes and formal processes at all levels.

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In Afghanistan,

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local communities usually comprised of the different actors in different conflict experts are also non non conflict actors for civilians.

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Women navigate their ways through these complexities and become peaceful actors without mentioning a name.

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I would just briefly mention an example for women peacebuilders in a highly insecure region of the country

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running a school who has to keep herself not only up to date with the everyday politics on the ground,

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but has to maintain some sort of link with the different actors to be constantly aware of their intentions.

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And this is for the protection of her school, her students, teachers and herself,

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and at the same time utilising these links to build confidence amongst the amongst and between conflicting groups and individuals.

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By providing them the space and opportunity to come into dialogue these days,

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the same women and women with an additional challenge off the call with 19 and trying to promote cease fire,

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pushing the agenda, pushing the conflict aside and fighting against a common, invisible enemy.

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It is very evident from the discussion today and from our experiences that women's movements across the globe, as well as specific contexts,

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have been contributing and promoting a positive, solution based narrative to peacebuilding and peace building strategies.

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It is hard to understand the direct and indirect truths of women in peace and mediation processes

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and the politics of these without a thorough understanding of women's roles more widely.

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Sunim gave some really insightful examples of that and are not repeat those.

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For the past two years, I've been working with women mediators across the Commonwealth network,

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members of this network or mediators and peace builders working across 20 countries,

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mediating conflicts in various spaces and settings at the different levels.

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Mediation and peacebuilding is a key part of their everyday work.

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No matter what tools they adopt from time to time, as needs arise.

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Working with the members of the WMC, my own belief is now even more stronger about the fact that women,

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peace builders and mediators around the world are very strategic and they adopt new rules

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when the needs arise while keeping the peace building agenda at the centre of their roles.

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They provide leadership in addressing issues of insecurity, exclusion, human rights, natural disaster and the pandemic.

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Today, it is women, peace builders who have been at the forefront, raising their voices on the short and long term impact of the pandemic,

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not only on women, but societies in general, and bringing to the light the mishandling of this by the governments, states and politicians.

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Additionally, my work with women,

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peaceful just and the diaspora enables me to understand how women are excluded once they leave their countries due to conflict

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and personal security and the way they are seen as not not relevant anymore in a global society today and the global impact.

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I'm looking at the global impact of conflict. This. Too many.

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And we often ignore this untapped resource right here with that, with us.

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And we want to utilise them for better results.

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These are crucial times in supporting the skills and firsthand experiences of women and the leadership that they are providing at the various fronts.

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It's really important. Today, women in Afghanistan and in other conflict and non conflict countries and regions are the ones

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who are responding to the new challenges of with 19 admits in the midst of all the challenges.

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So greater cooperation, collaboration and mutual support are essential ingredients, not only for us as women,

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but for for the wider, wider global community to overcome the challenges of the past, present and future.

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Thank you very much for your attention. I'll stop here and maybe engage more on this discussion later on.

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Thank you very much indeed, Ramona, for your presentation and for showing how women can create their own space in peace negotiations.

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And for highlighting also the challenges that they face. Thank you very much.