Peacebuilding After Armed Conflict:
After armed conflict: women shaping the future
Together with our partners, we work to ensure that peace activists play an active role in implementing peace agreements as well as in processes of dealing with the past after armed conflicts – thereby contributing to the prevention of violent conflict and renewed escalation.
The conclusion of a formal peace agreement also marks the beginning of a societal process of dealing with a violent past. From a feminist perspective, we see these processes as an opportunity for a comprehensive transformation of patriarchal societies fractured by armed conflict towards peaceful and gender-equitable coexistence.
Both our experience in peacebuilding and scientific findings show that women are often the first to build bridges across conflict lines after armed conflict because they share similar experiences. They create alliances between diverse ethnic and political groups or work collectively to gain recognition as survivors or victims*. Since dealing with the past usually takes decades, intergenerational peacebuilding is crucial as trauma is passed down from generation to generation. At the same time, activists often sustain peace efforts over many years and pass this task on to subsequent generations.
Building peace for the long term
In Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines, we have been working with our programme partners to promote the participation of women in truth and reconciliation commissions, the gender-equitable implementation of peace agreements, and the recognition and compensation of survivors of conflict-related violence, especially sexualised violence. We have been joining forces with women in their various efforts to contribute to the search for truth, to network across conflict lines and across generations, and to demand justice.
Our long-standing partnership with peace activists in these three countries highlights the prerequisites for effective peacebuilding after an armed conflict:
1) Support peace efforts sustainably and over the long-term to create the conditions for
2) peace activists to develop and strengthen their creative agency to bring about positive change through their actions,
3) so they can take advantage of suitable political windows of opportunity for the implementation of peace agreements and to bring about societal change.
Our cooperation with our partners is based on these insights in order to ensure effective peacebuilding in the long term and to counteract new spirals of violence.
*We use the term “victim” in full awareness of its negative connotations and associations with passivity and helplessness. The term is important for certain affected persons in order to demand recognition and support from the government.
Creatively capturing and sharing joint learnings
In our programme with Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines, we found that
access to people in positions of political power fosters accountability and amplifies recognition of women’s diverse experiences.
talking about traumatic events requires psychosocial support so that survivors do not experience re-traumatisation.
continuous lobbying and networking is needed to repeatedly draw attention to the diverse experiences of those affected by conflict and to prevent repetition.
the process of dealing with past conflicts contributes to the prevention of future violent conflicts.
By creatively capturing and sharing what we have learned together, we aim for a more sustainable impact of our engagement. The following illustration (known as a sketchnote) shows the process of change that we were able to achieve between 2021-2024.
Relevant content
Women Sustaining Peace event: A rich tapestry of feminist peacebuilding
Three women from our partner organisations in Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines found many commonalities in what it takes to sustain peace. At a public panel in Bern, the women talked about the importance of feminist principles in peacebuilding, particularly to prevent backsliding into armed violence, of safe spaces and self-care for activists and of not losing sight of the goal – sustainable peace.
Article in Fem*Fém 68 magazine: Sustaining peacebuilding efforts in post-armed conflict settings
In Fem*Fém magazine, our colleagues Liv Halperin and Camille Bernheim write about the decisive factors for creating a peaceful society after armed conflict.
New Colombia office: Peacebuilding: feminist, solidarity-based, local and decolonial
What does a decolonised approach to peacebuilding based on feminist values look like in practice? The first step in implementing our localisation efforts was the opening of an office in Colombia on 1 May 2025.
Learning exchange in the Philippines: Hope and inspiration for peace work
It was a special kind of exchange that we were able to organise with our partners in the Philippines in December: two representatives of the Gender Working Group of the Colombian Truth Commission exchanged their experiences with peace activists from the Philippines. Many moments of recognition and understanding emerged from these encounters.
Two generations at the Women's Peace Table: Nepal: Shared pain – shared demands
Various factors are hindering the implementation of the peace agreement in Nepal, with intergenerational consequences. At a Women's Peace Table, two generations talked about how the war has affected them.
Publication: From Transition to Transformation
Making peace processes more gender-sensitive
Three countries, four women and a cross-border solidarity
In 2019, we brought peace activists from Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines together to share their experiences of armed conflict and of the subsequent peace efforts and to benefit from each other's expertise.