Browse by Theme: Conflict & Fragility

This year, world leaders are set to renegotiate global commitments on poverty, climate change and development financing. At the same time, the United Nations has commissioned major reviews of UN efforts on humanitarian coordination, peacebuilding and peacekeeping operations. It is therefore timely, but unfortunate and symptomatic, that the 15th anniversary review of UN commitments to protect and empower women in times of conflict is also happening in 2015, but in a silo from those wider reforms.

Goal 16 in the Sustainable Development Goals is one of the poor relations in the mix. Both more complex and contentious than many of the proposed 17, it seeks to secure peaceful and open societies as a global target, and is vital. However, to be truly transformational, and to have a chance of surviving the negotiations in 2015, gender has to be a core part of its formulation.

Every year, hundreds of women’s rights activists come to New York to lobby governments in the United Nations on gender equality during the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). This year, CARE International has partnered with UN Women and the World Humanitarian Summit Secretariat to convene a workshop during CSW to consult activists from countries torn apart by war and natural disasters on how to better protect and empower women and girls in times of crisis.

Over the past few months, I have been scoping out the potential for CARE to engage more strategically with the African Union and civil society at continental level. For me, it’s clear that we can and should do more – detail to be discussed in the coming weeks – but for now, I’m writing from Addis Ababa during the closing days of the 24th AU Summit...

Ten years ago on Boxing Day, the Indian Ocean tsunamis crashed into the shorelines of 14 countries, killing more than 228,000 people and making almost two million more people homeless and bereaved. The scale of the disaster and the speed with which entire towns and communities were swept away was something the modern world had never seen before. This was to change the way we prepare for and respond to crises forever.

From 25 November to 10 December #16DaysofActivism, CARE country offices around the world will be joining with their partners and communities to raise voices to challenge gender-based violence. In a number of countries, men will be both a target group for activism – and activists themselves, helping to challenge the attitudes and norms that keep violence recurring.

After the global summit on sexual violence ended, CARE International UK’s conflict policy team set ourselves the task of making sure the interesting ideas we heard did not stop there. Over the next few months we will be scoping out plans for a regional campaign in the Great Lakes of Africa on changing male attitudes to women and sexual violence through the school curricula in each country as part of our focus on protecting and empowering women in conflict. Suggestions of reading or contacts and any tips very welcome.