Source: GulfNews
Nobel Peace Prize 2011 acknowledges their critical role in creating arepresentative, practical and efficient approach to managing conflict.

With the Nobel Peace Prize 2011 awarded to three women on December 10, the committee recognised something policymakers have ignored for centuries: the work of women in peace building.

Women (such as this year's joint winners, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia; Leymah Gbowee, an activist in Liberia; and Tawakul Karman of Yemen) have been honoured in the past. But now so will the concept of women's "full participation in peace-building work", as the Nobel Committee put it. And that recognition is new.

For nearly two decades, I and others in a global women's peace network have been pressing for just such a shift in the international security paradigm.

The world needs to move beyond ‘peace' that depends on warlords towards peace built on the expertise of all key stakeholders, especially women. We need to move from unstable interventions to inclusive security. That requires a major shift in how policymakers think about achieving peace.

The concept of ‘inclusive security' was born in 1999 at Harvard University, when 100 women gathered from around the world to document how they were pursuing just and sustainable peace. Their voices needed to be heard in circles where policy is formed.

Defying headlines that call them only victims, these women leaders focused on their ability to create change — not on their vulnerability — and on the need for a representative, practical, and efficient approach to managing conflict.

They were the first of the Women Waging Peace Network, now 1,000 strong and a driving force around the world. They're engaged in resolving conflicts, from mediating an end to resource disputes between communities to monitoring potential flashpoints within them.

One of our early network members was Sirleaf, who was to become the first elected woman president in Africa, followed by Gbowee, who had mobilised Liberian women across ethnic and religious divides to help end 14 years of civil war.

Progressive image

Through direct engagement with other members and through her example in Liberia, President Sirleaf has played a formative role in building the network.

The president, who ran in the first election as ‘Ma Ellen', is known worldwide for her focus on economic and social development. The image I hold is from early in her tenure. As we drove from church to her home, she got out of the car and pushed past her security detail to examine bricks being made in the street. "I wanted to be sure that the second lot of bricks matched the first," she explained.

Such attention to detail.

Gbowee brings to our network her experience organising Liberia's Muslim and Christian women. Together, they pressured warring parties into the 2002 negotiations that ultimately ended those years of horrific war.

The award-winning film Pray the Devil Back to Hell documents that bold and instructive story. In the fragile peacetime, she worked with the network on police and military reform.

The key to success? Policymakers recognising that women transform peace processes. From preventing war to stopping it to rebuilding, women are essential.

Women don't stop when an agreement is signed. Over years of implementation, they are apt to maintain their focus on a just and lasting peace, insisting that reconstruction address the needs of marginalised groups. With their perspectives accounted for, disaffected members of society have a greater incentive to see the negotiated agreement hold.

Women have built partnerships between leaders in and outside of government, so as to bridge legislation and the people it serves. The Nobel Committee highlighted the value of this collaboration by pairing two Liberians: one the highest-level elected official, and the other a dynamic grassroots activist.

The story of Sirleaf and Gbowee is extraordinary but not unique. Acknowledging that heartening fact, the committee has exhorted the world to turn toward the field known as ‘women, peace, and security'. From our experience, we know this can work.