M. Michaelson, Afar-Issa conflict management, in Insti-
tute of Current World Affairs Letters, Hanover, N.H.
January 2000.
E. Rehn and E. J. Sirleaf, Women, war and peace. The
independent experts’ assessment on the impact of
armed conflict on women and women’s role in peace-
building, New York 2002, <www.unifem.undp.org/
resources/assessment>.Emily FrankSub-Saharan Africa: West AfricaWomen play an important role in the transfor-
mation of conflicts in West Africa by becoming
active across political, religious, and ethnic affilia-
tions. Theirs is often conflict management at the
local level, where Africa’s internal wars are increas-
ingly fought, and their efforts can be the first steps
toward reconciliation in communities devastated
by violence.
At the end of 2000, the United Nations Security
Council passed Resolution 1325 to increase the
representation of women in peace processes. The
issue of women’s participation in conflict manage-
ment, the reconstruction of postwar communities,
and the prevention of future conflict are particu-
larly salient in West Africa where women constitute
the majority of those adversely affected by armed
conflict. Women throughout the region have con-
tributed to the reintegration of combatants and dis-
placed persons, the development of early warning
mechanisms, and the formation and management
of pressure groups through a cross-section of
organizations and civil society networks.
In 2000, women from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and
Guinea formed the Mano River Union Women
Peace Network (MARWOPNET). The network
has taken an active position in pressing for peace in
Sierra Leone, but it was the group’s initiative to
negotiate a meeting between feuding Presidents
Charles Taylor of Liberia and Lansana Conté of
Guinea in 2001 and convince the leaders to partic-
ipate in a regional peace summit that illustrated the
potential of women’s efforts toward conflict reso-
lution in West Africa. Despite its diplomatic suc-
cess, the effectiveness of MARWOPNET continues
to be limited by scarce resources and its exclusion
from the formal peace process.
In Liberia, a delegation of six women was organ-
ized to make a forced entry into the 1994 Accra
Clarifications Conference. Their experience de-
monstrates that governments and regional bodies
may still be gender-biased against women’s involve-
ment in the peace process; yet their strategic pres-550 peacekeeping and conflict management
ence at the conference increased the women’s visi-
bility in the media. As a result, the Liberian govern-
ment supported the appointment of a woman
interim president who was instrumental in negoti-
ating a temporary peace.
Women in Senegal have played a prominent role
in promoting meetings and rallies in the southern
region of Casamance where government forces
have struggled to avert an armed insurgency by the
rebel Mouvement des forces démocratiques de
Casamance (MFDC). In October 2002 over 3,000
women marched in Ziguinchor and solicited new
pledges from the regional governor and the MFDC
leaders to work toward a settlement.
In Mali, women’s associations have been integral
to the reconciliation and the restoration of trust
between the Northern Tuareg community and the
national government.
The National Women Peace Group (NAWO-
PEG) was founded in Nigeria in 2002 as a grass-
roots civil society initiative and a peace movement
to facilitate the transformation of conflict in Nige-
ria. The group functions as a network of mediators
and a framework for peace through a trained group
of women known as Focal Points (FPs), each of
whom represents a state in the federation.
Throughout West Africa, women have responded
to the urgent demands of managing conflicts and
reconstructing societies by breaking boundaries to
help build a secure future.Bibliography
J. Beilstein, The expanding role of women in United
Nations peacekeeping, in L. A. Lorentzen and J. Turpin
(eds.), The women and war reader, New York 1998,
140–7.
M. Fleshman, African women struggle for a seat at the
peace table, in Africa Recovery16:4 (February 2003),
1 and 15–19.
S. Hale, Some thoughts on women and gender in Africa.
Listening to the whispers of African women, in Journal
of African Studies16:1 (Winter 1998), 21–30.
S. Macdonald, P. Holden, and S. Ardener (eds.), Images of
women in peace and war, London 1987.
D. R. Marshall, Women in war and peace. Grassroots
peacebuilding, Washington, D.C. 2000.
L. Olsson, Gendering UN peacekeeping, Uppsala 1999.
C. Sylvester, Feminist theory and international relations in
a postmodern era, Cambridge 1994.
——,Feminist international relations. An unfinished
journey, Cambridge 2002.
UNESCO, Women’s contribution to a culture of peace,
Expert Group Meeting, Manila 25–28 April 1995.
United Nations Security Council Resolution S/RES/1325,
31 October 2000, <http://www.un.org/events/res_
1325e.pdf>.
S. Whitworth, Gender, race and the politics of peacekeep-
ing, in E. Moxon-Browne (ed.),A future for peace-
keeping?, London 1998, 158–75.Jennifer L. De Maio