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Women, Peace and Security in the Digital Age
May 9, 2023 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Free
Join us for a celebration of the PeaceFem mediation app, and a discussion on the challenges faced by the Women, Peace and Security agenda in the Digital Age.
When: Tuesday 9 May, 16:00 – 18:00
Where: InSpace, University of Edinburgh
Register to attend via Eventbrite
In 2000, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), which sets an agenda for all peace and conflict transition processes to include women’s meaningful participation, and gender perspectives in any resultant peace agreements. Over two decades later, the world of peace mediation has dramatically changed with the spread of Information Community Technologies (ICTs), and the widespread use of data to understand the progress and trajectory of women’s inclusion in peace processes. Meanwhile, the global conflict landscape is increasingly fragmented and complex, and presents new challenges for mediation approaches to resolving violent armed conflict.
The PeaceFem mobile app is a contribution to the growing field of PeaceTech, which uses technology to support peacebuilding. Designed for women’s rights advocates, mediation and negotiation teams, and other peace and security actors, PeaceFem contains strategies for influencing peace processes, as well as the resulting gender-sensitive provisions in peace agreements and data on their implementation. Launched in July 2020, the app is now in use in 60 countries around the globe and is available in five languages: Arabic, English, French, Indonesian, and Burmese. PeaceFem is available for download via Google Play and the App Store.
At this event, join co-creators of the PeaceFem app, and experts on Women, Peace and Security, peace and conflict, and PeaceTech, to discuss the opportunities and challenges that the Digital Age offers women’s equality advocates trying to influence conflict transitions. We will reflect on how women peacebuilders utilise PeaceTech to leverage inclusion, how technology can also restrict women’s meaningful participation, and why Women, Peace and Security advocates are increasingly using peace and conflict data to support their work.
Schedule
16:00: Welcome – Prof Christine Bell, Assistant Principal (Global Justice), University of Edinburgh School of Law, Executive Director of PeaceRep
16:05-16:15: PeaceFem introduction with Ms. Fiona Knäussel (Associate Researcher, University of Oxford)
16:15-16:45: Panel discussion – ‘Women, Peace and Security in the Digital Age’
Chair:
Ms. Laura Wise – Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh
Speakers:
• Dr Monalisa Adhikari – Lecturer in International Politics, University of Stirling
• Dr Sanja Badanjak – Chancellor’s Fellow in Global Challenges, University of Edinburgh
• Dr Claire Duncanson – Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Edinburgh
16:45-17:15: Open discussion
17:15-18:00: Drinks reception
This event is hosted by PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform. PeaceRep is a seven-year research consortium re-thinking peace and transition processes in light of changing conflict dynamics, led by the University of Edinburgh Law School. PeaceRep is funded by UK Aid from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), UK.
Register to attend via Eventbrite
About the speakers
Dr Monalisa Adhikari is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Stirling. Monalisa obtained her PhD in International Relations from the University of Edinburgh in 2020, and was a Research Fellow with the Political Settlements Research Programme. Her primary research interests include peace processes, international interventions in fragile and conflict-affected states, rising powers engagement in the global governance of peace and security, and foreign policies of India and China. She has conducted research in China, India, Myanmar and Nepal.
Dr Sanja Badanjak is a Chancellor’s Fellow in Global Challenges at the University of Edinburgh School of Law, PeaceRep’s Data Director, and Data Manager for the PA-X Peace Agreements Database and Dataset. Her research interests include the applications of quantitative and text-as-data methods in the study of institutions, elections, and peace processes. She completed her PhD in political science at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and holds and MA in political science from the Central European University.
Prof Christine Bell is Assistant Principal (Global Justice) and Professor of Constitutional Law at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh, and is PeaceRep’s Executive Director. She is a co-creator of the PeaceFem app. Christine’s research interests lie in the interface between constitutional and international law, gender and conflict, and legal theory, with a particular interest in peace processes and their agreements.
Dr Claire Duncanson is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the School of Social and Political Science. Claire’s research interests lie at the intersection of international security, IR theory and gender politics. Her work applies new theoretical insights about feminism, gender, and masculinities to international issues such as peacebuilding, military interventions, and nuclear proliferation. Her current project, with Carol Cohn at the Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Right, is focused on creating a Feminist Roadmap for Sustainable Peace and Planet. Prior to her academic career, she worked for a variety of human rights and international development NGOs, including Amnesty International, Jubilee 2000 and Global Perspective.
Ms. Fiona Knäussel is an Associate Researcher with PeaceRep based at the Oxford Internet Institute, and a co-creator of the PeaceFem mediation app. Her research focuses on the development and study of PeaceTech and peace data applications, and the ethical implications of the use of technologies in the context of conflict and peacebuilding. She also has a strong interest in women’s rights in conflict, and gender-specific and intersectional human rights issues. Fiona holds an LLM in Public International Law from the London School of Economics and an LLB (Hons) in Law and International Relations from the University of Edinburgh. She’s also currently reading for a MSc in Social Science of the Internet at the University of Oxford.
Ms. Laura Wise is a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh School of Law, PeaceRep gender lead, and a co-creator of the PeaceFem app. Laura’s research explores the margins of peace processes and their intersections with the politics of inclusion, with a particular focused on local peace processes, non-dominant minorities, and gender. Her work on gender perspectives in peace agreements regularly informs United Nations women, peace and security policy, and she has previously worked with UN Women to support women engaged in peace processes in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Libya. Laura holds an MA in Comparative Ethnic Conflict from Queen’s University Belfast and a BSc Econ in International Politics from Aberystwyth University.
About PeaceFem
PeaceFem is a collaboration between UN Women, Inclusive Peace, the Monash University Centre for Gender, Peace and Security, and the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep) at
the University of Edinburgh. The project has been financially supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in cooperation with Deustche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. PeaceRep/University of Edinburgh data was supported by UK Aid from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and Monash data was supported by Australian Research Council Linkage Project, ‘Toward Inclusive Peace: Mapping the Gender Provisions of Peace Agreements’. Inclusive Peace data was supported by Inclusive Security, UN Women, and the Governments of Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, and Turkey.