PeaceWomen Across the Globe is an internationally active feminist peace organisation based in Bern. We network women from war- and conflict-affected regions and support them in demanding their rights, helping to shape peace processes and thus creating a more peaceful world. We advocate for sustainable and visible women’s peace work.

15 years ago, Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold together with an international team nominated 1000 women for the Nobel Peace Prize. In an unprecedented initiative, they searched the world for women working for peace and justice. On the occasion of its anniversary we interviewed Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, initiator and co-president of PeaceWomen Across the Globe, about the decisive moments of the project.

Women's access to peace processes is severely limited, even though UN Resolution 1325 on "Women, Peace and Security" legally stipulates their participation. Peace processes offer critical windows of opportunity for the formal recognition of women's rights and for the elimination of discriminatory social structures and gender norms: important cornerstones for post-conflict transformative change. Women and women's organisations must play an active role in peace processes.

Our programmes create spaces where women can develop and advance their diverse efforts to achieve lasting peace. Our goal is the full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women in all phases of peace processes. Together with them, we advocate for a feminist understanding of peace that questions power relations and strives for transformative change.

In this programme, we focus on the point in time when there is little or no talk of peace and narratives revolve primarily around military and humanitarian measures. But peace work is relevant long before negotiations begin. The conditions must be actively created long before that: peace intentions and visions need to be developed and peace activists and their networks can be supported even during armed conflict. In this way, we can ensure that women are prepared to engage with the post-conflict period and to strategically plan for and participate in structural, transformative change.