In this podcast, our programme manager Andrea Filippi talks to the Oxford Society for International Development about our work for genuine peace and gender justice. With a particular focus on our work with our partners in Colombia, Ukraine and Palestine, she describes how we support women to become active participants in peace processes, thereby helping to shape sustainable peace.
The OxSID is a student-run organisation founded in 2017.
The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and on the OxSID website.

Moments of recognition and understanding emerged during the exchange between peace activists from Colombia and the Philippines. Our programme officers Andrea Filippi and Karin Widmer were there.

Common paths to peace: this could be the title of this print newsletter. Because the women from Colombia and Ukraine featured in this issue are on these paths – even though war is still raging in Ukraine and a peace agreement has been in force in Colombia since 2016.

Three different countries and contexts, each with different peace agreements and challenges in implementation. And yet, the three women from our partner organisations in Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines found many commonalities – in the experiences and insights shared by women peacebuilders and in what it takes to sustain peace. At a public panel in Bern, the three 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.

Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines. What these countries have in common: They have formally ended armed conflicts, but there is still no peace. Women peacebuilders from our partner organisations in these three countries share their achievements and insights on sustaining peace during transitional justice processes and preventing backsliding into armed conflict at an event in Bern on 16 October 2024.

Our long-standing partnerships in Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines, where formal peace agreements have been signed, support women in the implementation of peace agreements and in their efforts to bring about structural change. In three videos with representatives of our partner organisations in these countries, they share their most important insights from their collaboration with us. 

Social media offer a global platform for the work of activists and their messages. But women who prominently campaign for peace and justice quickly experience an often violent backlash both in virtual and physical spaces. At an event we organised with the Canadian Embassy in Bern on 1 April 2025, Sudanese peace activist and gender expert Rabab Baldo and the Colombian human rights lawyer Luz Marina Monzón Cifuentes spoke about how cyberviolence is part of a broader effort to silence women like them.

International support for peace in Colombia must not waver, warns human rights lawyer Luz Marina Monzón Cifuentes in an interview with swissinfo. What is needed now is a peace policy that focuses on the small communities caught up in the violence. In April, we invited Luz Marina to an event in Bern.

As a peace organisation based in Switzerland, we have been exploring the question: What does a decolonial approach to peacebuilding based on feminist values look like in practice? Our global collaboration with partners has repeatedly shown us that the challenges to women's peace and security can only be overcome through transnational strategies. These are geopolitically relevant, emerge from local initiatives and are led by local women peace activists on the ground. The first step in implementing our localisation efforts was the opening of an office in Colombia on 1 May 2025.

Fostering connections and exchange among women and feminist peacebuilders from countries affected by violent conflict is a central aim across all our programmes. To advance this goal, we invited two Sudanese and two Colombian peace activists to Switzerland. Over four days they shared experiences, strategies and approaches to feminist peacebuilding. They also met with decision-makers to highlight the challenges faced by women peace activists, particularly young ones, in their respective countries – and to voice their expectations.