58
59
above. Thus, their peacebuilding efforts are often conducted through what John Paul Lederach (1997) and Rupesinghe (1994, 1995) describe as the bottom-up approach26. Most importantly, women’s goals, practical and strategic are appropriately defined as a collective effort in the framework of women organizations at all levels of the society (Molyneux, 1985 and 1998). Given the goals-orientation, women are ideally propelled to engage long-term development processes (anti-poverty and socio-economic empowerment, welfare, equity, and human rights strategies) to ensure the effective realization of their development needs (Massaquoi 2007). However, for these to be achieved, women’s rights must be institutionalized into the processes from the very beginning, with access to government and decision-making platforms.
Notably, various African Women’s Peace Initiatives have made relevant documentations on the underlying role of women’s sustained advocacy, capacity building and community mobilization for reconciliation, justice and peace programmes under the axis of women organizations in Africa (Ernest 1997: 6). Specific to post-conflict Sierra Leone, Dyfan (2003) highlights the roles played by Women’s Movement for Peace and the Women’s Forum; these organizations mobilized resources and engaged in skills training programmes to support greater women’s participation in public decision-making and post-conflict peacebuilding
26 According to Haider (2007:7), this approach by women’s organizations is quite inclusive in that it is people- centered and participatory, and is efficient method for conflict resolution within societies. To Lederach (1997), it provides the people with a sense of ownership of the course and processes for which they advocate and creates the platform for programmes that are all-inclusive and take counts of the voices and agencies of the ordinary grassroots people and leaders. These group of people and leaders constitute women’s organizations, among others, and are ‘particularly relevant after civil wars in deeply divided societies’ (Gizelis 2013:3). Through the bottom-up approach, communities (women’s organizations) stand a better chance of addressing some of the underlying structural challenges that have deprived them of their human and civil rights, as well as practical and strategic interests (Molyneux and Lazar 2003: 55). It aims to empower them to take charge of managing situations of (post-) conflict by transforming and reconciling their communities and averting conflict recurrence (Lederach 1997). The United Nations as does Lederach (1997) acknowledges that women form the majority population of grassroots communities and the wider civil society. They further maintain that women’s involvement as grassroots peacebuilders by a considerable margin facilitates the realization of peace efforts and influences transformation through empowerment and participatory development. According to McCarthy (2011: 121), the resourcefulness of grassroots women as proactive architects of peace during and in the aftermath of conflicts often speak to their positions as stakeholders in the situation, and underscores their self- empowerment through bottom-up development as women’s initiatives or organizations (Krook and True 2010:
116). To this effect, bottom-up approach to peacebuilding is pivotal to the processes of peace consolidation and implementation and is prone to further influence developments and outcomes at the middle and top levels of society (Aliyev 2010: 327 & 330).
60
processes. In post-genocide Rwanda, Mutamba and Izabiliza (2005) bring to the fore the commended peacebuilding roles of Rwandan women in leadership positions and organizations like Unity Club, Forum of Rwandan Women Parliamentarians, and Pro- Femmes TweseHamwe. Through these networks, women masterminded reconciliation and confidence building projects, and empowerment initiatives that also enlisted grassroots women to partake in decision-making (Mutamba and Izabiliza 2005). Noteworthy in the Rwandan case is that women’s involvement has secured them government support and an overwhelming 63.8 percent at the lower house and 38.5 at the upper house of parliament (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2015). While governments’ support for women’s organizations in Sierra Leone and Rwanda is important in every way possible, Tripp (2015) highlights that the works and efforts of women’s organizations in war-torn countries and those transitioning from it, have been and are often privy to various forms of assistance from international development organizations.
In the case of post-conflict Liberia, the role of women in peacebuilding is progressively marked by their increased activism, as both stakeholders and contributors of peace and development under various women-led organizations.27 These organizations are continually influencing the country’s peacebuilding processes through activism and advocacy; conflict management; strategic involvement in truth and reconciliation; and in peace and security training programmes both at national (urban) and as grassroots levels (PeaceWomen Project 2006; von Gienanth and Jaye 2007). One major achievement of women’s organization and activism in Liberia has been the election and re-election of a female Head of State –President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in 2005 and 2011 respectively. Also, the growing recognition of women’s roles through the Nobel Peace Prize Awards to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and Leymah Gbowee (coordinator of WIPNET) in 2011 (Herbert 2014: 4), are evident substantiations for their leading peace roles in Liberia. Important to note however, is the fact that the advancement of women’s role and success thereof in realizing peacebuilding processes in
27 Women NGOs Secretariat of Liberia (WONGOSOL); Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET); National Women's Commission of Liberia (NAWOCAL); Liberian Female Law Enforcement Association (LIFLEA); Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET); Development Education Network -Liberia (DEN-L); and Ganta Concern Women Development Association (Ganta Concern Women), etc.
61
Liberia, as in any post-conflict society, must hinge on their (women’s) access to women and national policy apparatuses, as provisioned in the BDPfA. Studies have pinpointed some of such important accessible platforms to include: the creation of the Ministry of Gender and Development (Toure 2002); the reform and amendment of the rape and customary law on inheritance, and the establishment of a National Gender Policy in Liberia (Ministry of Gender and Development 2009; Government of Liberia 2014); the establishment a Women and Children Protection Section of the Liberian National Police (Bastick and Whitman 2013);
Government Land Policy and Land Policy Reform for Women in Liberia (Republic of Liberia Land Commission 2013), just to mention a few. These development outcomes spearheaded by women and women’s organizations in Liberia remind that for women to be equal participants in decision-making and for peacebuilding processes to be effectively implemented, women organizations cannot operate in a vacuum, but alongside the state through access to different women’s policies and state machineries. Moreover, literature reviews that some of the works of these women’s organizations in Liberia are supported by the government as well as international development agencies like the United Nations, the African Union, ECOWAS, etc. This and the fore-mentioned developments are discussed in the contents of chapters five and six of this study.
A deep-seated and corresponding value to the substantial role women’s organizations play as vocal advocates for transformation and peace initiatives lies in the relevance of stated post- conflict agendas. Of importance to this study is the need to critically research how and where women’s organizations fit into these agendas, and how they translate them into desirable outcomes. This is fundamental in defining women’s roles as peacebuilders and will be expanded in subsequent chapters through the Liberian experience. However, a point of contention which often is blurred yet creates a dearth in understanding women’s organizing for peace is the tendency of institutions and society to over generalize their organizational roles. This usually occurs irrespective of their operationalizing as individual entities with diverse strategic goals and may emasculate their significance and contributions to post- conflict processes. Aiming to address this, the study draws from Molyneux’s (1985) proposition, that women’s formation as organizational bodies are built on the pillars of several practical, but most precisely strategic interests and needs. These interests (as theoretically
62
discussed in the next chapter) stem from women’s state of affairs in the socio-economic and political setting of society, as well as their rights to vie for change and transformation of society’s gendered nature that breeds inequality (United Nations Development Programme 2001). In this view, Molyneux (1985 and 2001) as does this study, stresses the importance of engaging women’s organizations in peace and decision-making processes as movements with diverse strategic objectives rather than a homogeneous entity.
Sequel to the above reviewed scholarly perspectives on women and peacebuilding and the paucities identified in literature, the study endeavours to add appropriate intellectual, theoretical, practical and policy contributions to that which already exists on the subject. It interrogates the role of women under the auspices of women’s organizations in the context of Liberia’s peacebuilding architecture. Hence the study’s goals are to heighten understanding of the diversity of women’s peacebuilding roles in the framework of post- conflict recovery agenda, the challenges that confront their efforts in the process, and the effectiveness of their contributions to the process outcomes.