Read our feminist critique of where 25 years of experimenting with Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina has left us.
We believe that the foundation for permanent and just peace is multifaceted. It is not just the absence of war and violence. Peace also comes from living and being part of thriving societies. Societies that are sustainable, just, equal and inclusive.
The grim reality is that we live in a world dominated by capitalism — a system that is profoundly unjust and builds on exploitation, destruction and oppression of people, communities and entire countries. We are not supposed to question how wealth is created and distributed, or who and what it harms. Capitalism affects every aspect of our lives, be it in the public or private sphere.
Through the lens of feminist political economy, WILPF — together with many organisations and activists around the world — advocates for political and economic policies that will put an end to destruction, exploitation, gender, racial and other inequalities and injustices, and that are centred around ecological sustainability and solidarity within and between countries.
The current mainstream political economy is based on capitalism and neoliberalism, fuelling inequality, violence, injustices and environmental destruction. Using the lens of feminist political economy, WILPF seeks to challenge and deconstruct the existing system by focusing on how gender determines our social, political and economic relationships and structures.
Our vision is a world free of capitalism and its destructive tools of war and oppression, where just and equal societies are built on democratic, inclusive and transparent policies that promote equality, solidarity, social cohesion and justice.
Using feminist political economy as part of our analysis helps us advance our thinking on what comprehensive and transformative social and gender justice approaches to peace can look like. It also helps us show how current approaches to conflict and post-conflict reconstruction and recovery are blind to equality and social justice.
We use feminist political economy as an analytical lens to understand and make known the systems of oppression in our societies that lead to precarity, inequality, exploitation, conflicts and destruction. We also use feminist political economy analysis to dismantle these systems and reimagine alternatives that build sustainable, feminist, demilitarised societies based on equality, justice, solidarity and care.
Спочатку аналіз був написаний англійською мовою. Таким чином, у зв’язку із зовнішніми перекладацькими послугами можуть виникнути розбіжності між англійською та українською версіями. Будь ласка, зверніться до англійської версії для отримання оригінального тексту.
Read our feminist critique of where 25 years of experimenting with Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina has left us.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the toxic effects of a system that has for far too long dominated every aspect of our societies. Neoliberalism, as an economic ideology of capitalism, has depleted our public services, turned our education and healthcare into profit-driven businesses, hoarded profits at the expense of undervalued and underpaid workers, favoured profitability of a militarised world over human security and well-being, and aggravated inequalities between people and countries.
COVID-19 revealed structural injustices of the financial sector that have deepened since 2008 and have lasting consequences. These injustices are deeply gendered in nature as the financial markets value riskier, more “masculine”, and often more harmful goods, services and characteristics as higher than all the rest.
The consequences of COVID-19 and the lockdown of countries across the world are yet to be fully understood, but one thing that was immediately noticeable, and welcomed, was that nature benefited from us slowing down.
In the report, we argue that an economic reform agenda introduced in a post-conflict country that is not underpinned by a rigorous feminist conflict and gender analysis, will contribute to a continuum of entrenched structural and gender inequalities. The report focuses on the Reform Agenda for Bosnia and Herzegovina as the content of the reforms is a prime example of a prevailing austerity paradigm seen across Europe.
By using feminist political economy, WILPF seeks to understand the political economy of war and post-conflict recovery and deconstruct seemingly fixed and unchangeable economic, social and political parameters of reconstruction and recovery processes. We use our analysis to push back against financialisation of recovery processes and to advocate for public investments that prioritise gender-just recovery and inclusive and transparent decision-making processes.
What shall an international post-COVID-19 settlement look like? In this publication, six feminist principles for a post-COVID-19 recovery is being presented. Originally presented to the UN General Assembly, they are now compiled in this publication with the hope to bring new ideas, perspectives, and solutions forward.
This report was submitted by WILPF International to the UN Working Group (UNWG) on Business and Human Rights for its project aimed to clarify the practical steps that States and business enterprises should take to implement the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in conflict and post-conflict contexts. The submission highlights the importance to address the arms industry’s responsibility, illustrates why companies’ enhanced human rights due diligence should be gender and conflict-sensitive, and challenges neoliberal assumptions on what makes sustainable peace.
In response to the call by the UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights for contributions on the impact of economic reforms and austerity measures on women’s human rights, WILPF made a submission drawing from WILPF reports on Ukraine, Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
We believe that feminist political economy is needed to help us imagine a world free from injustice, violence and systems of oppression that profit from suffering. That is why we work on learning how to use feminist political economy throughout all our programmes and engage in dialogues with our Sections, partners and other networks so that we can collectively formulate transformative, feminist political economy approaches on a national, regional and global level.
This is a guide on how we can document and analyse the underlying causes of the challenges our communities face in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights key aspects of the responses we need to be paying attention to: inequalities, community need and public interest, economic consequences and bail-out programmes, disaster capitalism, violence, militarisation and repression, and acts of solidarity.
This is a guide on how feminist political economy can strengthen feminist analysis of root causes to conflict and help envision pathways to sustainable peace. Our intention is that this publication can help guide practitioners in their discussions and feminist political economy analysis of conflict and post-conflict contexts.
Over the years we have brought our feminist political economy analysis and thinking around post-conflict reconstruction and recovery to various spaces — from feminist solidarity dialogues, academic conversations and writings and the work of our Sections and partners, to networks and other collective efforts to push back against systems of oppression.
WILPF has teamed up with Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland, Karazin National Kharkiv University and Center for Social and Labour Research from Ukraine to examine the gendered practices of survival in the context of Ukraine. The project will document how diverse Ukrainians experience and respond to different but interlinked forms of violence – from the violence of war and Russian invasion, to the economic violence unleashed by structural and austerity reforms. Using a feminist political economy lens, the project will examine how the coping strategies are shaped by gender and other intersectional identities, and influenced by national and international policies.
In collaboration with Regions Refocus and NAWI- Afrifem Macroeconomics Collective, WILPF worked on an explainer covering the issue of post-conflict recovery and trade. The explainer is produced by Regions Refocus for the Gender and Trade Coalition. It puts forward strategic policy proposals to harness trade as a tool that complements rather than counteracts post-conflict recovery of both economies and people. It draws from answers to the following questions:
Together with other women’s rights and peace organisations, environmental groups, economic justice communities, trade unions, human rights defender=s, activists, researchers, humanitarian and health organisations and ordinary people, WILPF joined the EndAusterity Campaign to push back against neoliberal policies that exacerbate the climate crisis, growing inequality and debt burdens, conflict and food insecurity. Check out the EndAusterity Campaign website for more information and resources.
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Prior to being elected Vice-President, Melissa Torres was the WILPF US International Board Member from 2015 to 2018. Melissa joined WILPF in 2011 when she was selected as a Delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women as part of the WILPF US’ Practicum in Advocacy Programme at the United Nations, which she later led. She holds a PhD in Social Work and is a professor and Global Health Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine and research lead at BCM Anti-Human Trafficking Program. Of Mexican descent and a native of the US/Mexico border, Melissa is mostly concerned with the protection of displaced Latinxs in the Americas. Her work includes training, research, and service provision with the American Red Cross, the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Centre, and refugee resettlement programs in the U.S. Some of her goals as Vice-President are to highlight intersectionality and increase diversity by fostering inclusive spaces for mentorship and leadership. She also contributes to WILPF’s emerging work on the topic of displacement and migration.
Jamila Afghani is the President of WILPF Afghanistan which she started in 2015. She is also an active member and founder of several organisations including the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organisation (NECDO). Elected in 2018 as South Asia Regional Representative to WILPF’s International Board, WILPF benefits from Jamila’s work experience in education, migration, gender, including gender-based violence and democratic governance in post-conflict and transitional countries.
Sylvie Jacqueline NDONGMO is a human rights and peace leader with over 27 years experience including ten within WILPF. She has a multi-disciplinary background with a track record of multiple socio-economic development projects implemented to improve policies, practices and peace-oriented actions. Sylvie is the founder of WILPF Cameroon and was the Section’s president until 2022. She co-coordinated the African Working Group before her election as Africa Representative to WILPF’s International Board in 2018. A teacher by profession and an African Union Trainer in peace support operations, Sylvie has extensive experience advocating for the political and social rights of women in Africa and worldwide.
In response to the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and its targeted attacks on civil society members, WILPF Afghanistan issued several statements calling on the international community to stand in solidarity with Afghan people and ensure that their rights be upheld, including access to aid. The Section also published 100 Untold Stories of War and Peace, a compilation of true stories that highlight the effects of war and militarisation on the region.
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WILPF uses feminist analysis to argue that militarisation is a counter-productive and ill-conceived response to establishing security in the world. The more society becomes militarised, the more violence and injustice are likely to grow locally and worldwide.
Sixteen states are believed to have supplied weapons to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2020 with the US supplying 74 % of weapons, followed by Russia. Much of this equipment was left behind by the US military and is being used to inflate Taliban’s arsenal. WILPF is calling for better oversight on arms movement, for compensating affected Afghan people and for an end to all militarised systems.
Mobilising men and boys around feminist peace has been one way of deconstructing and redefining masculinities. WILPF shares a feminist analysis on the links between militarism, masculinities, peace and security. We explore opportunities for strengthening activists’ action to build equal partnerships among women and men for gender equality.
WILPF has been working on challenging the prevailing notion of masculinity based on men’s physical and social superiority to, and dominance of, women in Afghanistan. It recognizes that these notions are not representative of all Afghan men, contrary to the publicly prevailing notion.
In WILPF’s view, any process towards establishing peace that has not been partly designed by women remains deficient. Beyond bringing perspectives that encapsulate the views of half of the society and unlike the men only designed processes, women’s true and meaningful participation allows the situation to improve.
In Afghanistan, WILPF has been demanding that women occupy the front seats at the negotiating tables. The experience of the past 20 has shown that women’s presence produces more sustainable solutions when they are empowered and enabled to play a role.