Spotlights

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Each month, we spotlight one of our RN-WPS members in our newsletter. This is an important aspect of the network’s aim to support professional development, particularly for early career scholars, and intra-network collaboration. In these spotlights, we have spoken to a range of academic, researchers and policy professionals who offer diverse perspectives on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS)  agenda, the work they do in the WPS space and the importance of networks like ours for creating space for advancing the agenda. You can see all of our previous spotlights on this page.

If you would like to be spotlighted in a future edition of our newsletter, please fill out this form for consideration.

Rasha Jarum

Rasha Jarhum is the co-founder and director of the Peace Track Initiative (PTI), a research group hosted by Human Rights Research and Education Centre, at the University of Ottawa. Her work at PTI focuses on gender, peace and security, advocating for women’s, children’s and refugee’s rights.

Rasha is South Yemeni, and was invited by the UN Special Envoy to Yemen to support the peace talks held in Kuwait in 2016. She has also briefed the UN Security Council on Yemen and Women’s Rights to push for peace. She is also a founding member of the Women Solidarity Network in Yemen, a coordinator for the MENA1325 Network, and a member of the MENA regional Coalition of Women Human Rights Defenders.

  • Hi Rasha. To begin, please tell us what working on WPS, either in the academic, policy or advocacy space, means to you.

    Rasha: In my home country of Yemen, WPS is a necessity. We had no NAP when the conflict began, so it prompted those of us in civil society organizations (CSO) to start thinking about women's status in this way. In 2015, we started lobbying for a WPS national action plan (NAP). Many donors were not keen and questioned its feasibility but five years later - after significant perseverance from Yemeni women - the NAP was published. There was big CSO involvement, given we have launched our own national agenda to set priorities for the NAP and shared those with the UNSCR. This experience in Yemen has made me an NAP expert. As a result, I was an advisor for the most recent Canadian NAP.

    And now, reflecting on the past 25 years of the WPS and looking forward to the next era of the agenda, what do you think should be the main priorities for the upcoming 25 years?

    Rasha: We need more accountability for implementation of WPS. I would like to see there be more legally binding elements within the agenda, so the people working on peace processes are not able to make excuses when they ignore WPS in their work.

    Thank you. Finally, why do you think the spaces that are created through networks like RN-WPS, are important for advancing WPS?

    Rasha: Knowledge sharing is so important, especially across generations. That is why it is great to have people representing different expertise in the same room. It is important for building on what we have learnt and gives us an edge over others. This is especially true when we have a mix of Global North and Global South idea sharing.

Vanessa Brown

Vanessa was the first Gender Advisor to Commander of the Canadian Defence Academy and has received a commendation from the Canadian Chief of the Defence Staff for her commissioned report applying gender-based and intersectional analysis to military education and culture at Canadian Forces. She currently teaches in the areas of leadership, military sociology, and institutional policy with a focus on gender perspectives and intersectionality and is also an International Expert on Women, Peace and Security for Alinea International and Kingston Leadership Team Incorporated, developing Women, Peace and Security training for the armed forces of Ukraine, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines.

  • Hi Vanessa. To begin, please tell us what working on WPS, either in the academic, policy or advocacy space, means to you.

    Vanessa: In my work, WPS is central to understanding the disproportionate experience and inequality that exists in times of peace. These things are only then exacerbated in times of crisis and conflict. For example, I teach WPS to the military, so understanding the larger systems of power and how they play out in military contexts is vital learning to provide the correct response.

    And now, reflecting on the past 25 years of the WPS and looking forward to the next era of the agenda, what do you think should be the main priorities for the upcoming 25 years?

    Vanessa: For me, there has been evolution and growth in WPS. At first, it focused on conflict and the impacts on historically minoritized groups at the international level. Now, as we see more national implementation of the agenda, we are beginning to recognise that security concerns span a wider spectrum of instability which exists even in countries free from active conflict. Many more countries are reconsidering the domestic part of WPS and looking inwards in their implementation. So the next 25 years is about confronting these larger systems of power and the inequalities they create.  

    Thank you. Finally, why do you think the spaces that are created through networks like RN-WPS, are important for advancing WPS?


    Vanessa: It is important that we are reminded often that we are not alone in our work, and this space does that so well. It is a space in which we advocate for WPS cross sectorally to combat multi-dimensional challenges. This work requires the diverse experiences and stories of the network members. Honestly, it is also just a really therapeutic space, and has let me think differently about our