FOSDA Women, Peace and Security Project Officer, Ms. Dorothy Barnes, advised that an opportunity that exists to meaningfully include women in decision-making processes in prevention and peacebuilding is for governments, civil society, development partners, and national counterparts to deliberately call upon, and use the services of women mediators in peacebuilding processes.

She mentioned that FOSDA had officially launched the Women Mediators Network of Ghana (WoMNet-GH) as part of their Monitoring Ghana NAP 2 Project, and stated that the launch was a way to formalize the presence of professionally trained women mediators across Ghana who had the credentials to promote peace at the national and international levels. She also said that creating visibility for WoMNet-GH meant documenting the achievements of women mediators for policymakers to recognize and acknowledge their contributions, which could in turn influence them to effectively mainstream gender in all sectors of prevention and peacebuilding in Ghana.

Ms. Barnes shared her advice as a young panelist and FOSDA gender officer during the session, “Advancing Gender-Inclusive Peacebuilding in Coastal West Africa,” at the IDPS Dialogue on Coastal West Africa, which was held on March 25th and 26th at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel.
During this panel session, other questions that were explored included what women insider mediators could do to contribute to building trust, resolving conflicts, and fostering sustainable peace in Coastal West Africa. To this end, Ms. Barnes mentioned that what worked for WoMNet-GH was the fact that most of the mediators were very much involved in their communities as queen mothers, senior lecturers, civil servants, and development practitioners and were part of the various regional peace councils in Ghana. Hence, they leveraged these roles to communicate openly whenever they created awareness of the importance of peace.
The panel session was moderated by Ms. Grace Lee, political counselor at the Canadian High Commission. Other esteemed panel members included Ms. Claire Améyo Quenum, the CSPPS focal point in Togo; Ms. Maniamba Kande, Directrice Générale du Bureau d’Appui à la Cooperation avec l’Union Européenne, Ministère du Plan de la Coopération Internationale (Guinea); and Ms. Vera Cravid, President of the Association of Women Jurists; and Attorney at the Public Ministry, Ministry of Justice, Sao Tome and Principe.

The International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (IDPS) is the first forum for political dialogue bringing together countries affected by conflict and fragility, development partners, and civil society.
This regional dialogue on coastal West Africa brought together regional organizations, multilateral actors, national authorities, civil society, and development partners. The main goal of this event was to address key challenges and promote regional multistakeholder engagement related to prevention, resilience, and peacebuilding in the region.
This event was also supported by the Canadian High Commission and the UNDP.