Welcome, Caramanica Ha, as the third panellist,
Ramona is a senior strategic adviser to women mediators across the Commonwealth and at work at Conciliation Resources.
She's a peace activist and a development practitioner. She's a founder and director of Women for Peace and Participation,
an organisation providing platforms for communities in conflict regions and diaspora communities in UK and Europe.
He's worked working key positions, including in the U.N., USAID and jails and the High Council, High Peace Council of Afghanistan.
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.
Thank you very much, everyone. And hello, everyone. Very glad to be amongst you all and contributing to this very important discussion.
I want to start with a very short story, and it may be an example from my work.
Some years ago in a meeting with a group of four women and young girls in Kandahar city of Afghanistan discussing
the role of women in the peace process and in creating opportunities to support the process in Afghanistan.
This was the time with not many,
were not many supported or believed in the peace process and were against the idea of peace negotiations with the Taliban.
But local communities, particularly women, believed in talks and the only way to end the decades long conflict.
When asked what these women and girls were hoping from the process and what rules they had,
they kept on saying, we believe the reality of our lives and we understand the politics of our reality.
Living in a city bordering a country which is an important actor in a conflict
with influence over the political and security uncertainties of the country.
They say that we understand the core issues, the root causes of the conflict and the wonder how can politicians,
regional and international governments do not understand?
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.
So today in the same region, when speaking to women about what has changed, the answer is nothing has changed.
Are we understood now even much, much better than before that?
Everyone has been contradicting what they said by their actions and when talking about inclusion.
They did not want to talk about inclusion forever topping their exclusion.
And they kept on saying, we do not need others to include us.
We are naturally included by being part of the society. We have suffered more than any other segment of the society and contributed more
than anyone else towards the reconstruction and development of the country.
And there is no question about whether we should be included or not.
We need we need to think about how to stop our forced exclusion by all the various actors.
Women in Afghanistan have been playing an important role in peacebuilding and mediation, and this is not a new phenomenon to the country.
Many of us are aware about the process of reaching an agreement between the US and the Taliban.
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
interests of the Afghan people to be considered Afghan women and their supporters from many countries are the weakness of this struggle,
especially in recent times. And we have seen that not only Afghan women,
but women from all around the world raise their voices in support of not excluding Afghan women and their their perspectives,
the agency of women and their alliances. It's increasingly becoming a threat for some.
The fact that they bring facts into the light and that's to the peace table.
And all of these have been challenging the unnecessary secrecy of the process and
encouraging transparency around peace processes that not everyone is comfortable with.
And which is, of course, I mean,
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.
Firstly,
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,
sensitive, more sensitive, less sensitive, relevant and not relevant.
Debates and discussions usually par hold those in a given context, particularly speaking about the example of Afghanistan.
A generally comfortable with the idea of women peaceful building peace in informal settings unless they demand formal rules.
But they don't understand the real and sustainable peace building up predominantly happens in the
informal settings and these needs to be taken into account and integrated into the formal processes.
May this peacebuilding at the community level, at the national level, are local peacemakers or civil society or local politicians.
The important roles that women play in informal settings usually include confidence building,
bridging the divide between communities and groups and within groups,
addressing the needs of communities and providing them with enabling environment and space for constructive, constructive contributions.
Informal processes are extremely essential for the formal processes to happen.
But these informal processes are often used as a tool for excluding women, youth and other unheard actors from formal processes.
And this is what has been the case in Afghanistan for all key actors involved to justify.
Women are included. They are supported to participate in informal and side meetings.
The purpose of which should be informing the formal process and enabling women to take part in the formal process.
But the outcome of these informal meetings and engagements have been either fed into the formal discussions,
not have they guaranteed women's participation in informal process and decision making.
Symbolic representation is still used used to avoid any critiques.
The formal is too sensitive. The informal is not formal enough.
And then the stanzas standards of the two for the people and communities on the ground at the
very grassroots level is completely different from the standards which we use internationally.
Secondly, the creation of new spaces is another key element to avoid and fight against any sort of inclusion from experience,
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.
Creating this space is a key for addressing the root causes of conflict in the
way of getting consensus and why women initiate the creation of new spaces.
It is due to their exclusion from existing structures and processes and formal processes at all levels.
In Afghanistan,
local communities usually comprised of the different actors in different conflict experts are also non non conflict actors for civilians.
Women navigate their ways through these complexities and become peaceful actors without mentioning a name.
I would just briefly mention an example for women peacebuilders in a highly insecure region of the country
running a school who has to keep herself not only up to date with the everyday politics on the ground,
but has to maintain some sort of link with the different actors to be constantly aware of their intentions.
And this is for the protection of her school, her students, teachers and herself,
and at the same time utilising these links to build confidence amongst the amongst and between conflicting groups and individuals.
By providing them the space and opportunity to come into dialogue these days,
the same women and women with an additional challenge off the call with 19 and trying to promote cease fire,
pushing the agenda, pushing the conflict aside and fighting against a common, invisible enemy.
It is very evident from the discussion today and from our experiences that women's movements across the globe, as well as specific contexts,
have been contributing and promoting a positive, solution based narrative to peacebuilding and peace building strategies.
It is hard to understand the direct and indirect truths of women in peace and mediation processes
and the politics of these without a thorough understanding of women's roles more widely.
Sunim gave some really insightful examples of that and are not repeat those.
For the past two years, I've been working with women mediators across the Commonwealth network,
members of this network or mediators and peace builders working across 20 countries,
mediating conflicts in various spaces and settings at the different levels.
Mediation and peacebuilding is a key part of their everyday work.
No matter what tools they adopt from time to time, as needs arise.
Working with the members of the WMC, my own belief is now even more stronger about the fact that women,
peace builders and mediators around the world are very strategic and they adopt new rules
when the needs arise while keeping the peace building agenda at the centre of their roles.
They provide leadership in addressing issues of insecurity, exclusion, human rights, natural disaster and the pandemic.
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,
not only on women, but societies in general, and bringing to the light the mishandling of this by the governments, states and politicians.
Additionally, my work with women,
peaceful just and the diaspora enables me to understand how women are excluded once they leave their countries due to conflict
and personal security and the way they are seen as not not relevant anymore in a global society today and the global impact.
I'm looking at the global impact of conflict. This. Too many.
And we often ignore this untapped resource right here with that, with us.
And we want to utilise them for better results.
These are crucial times in supporting the skills and firsthand experiences of women and the leadership that they are providing at the various fronts.
It's really important. Today, women in Afghanistan and in other conflict and non conflict countries and regions are the ones
who are responding to the new challenges of with 19 admits in the midst of all the challenges.
So greater cooperation, collaboration and mutual support are essential ingredients, not only for us as women,
but for for the wider, wider global community to overcome the challenges of the past, present and future.
Thank you very much for your attention. I'll stop here and maybe engage more on this discussion later on.
Thank you very much indeed, Ramona, for your presentation and for showing how women can create their own space in peace negotiations.
And for highlighting also the challenges that they face. Thank you very much.