PeaceWomen Across the Globe is an internationally active feminist peace organisation based in Bern with an office in Colombia. We support women and feminist peacebuilders in contexts affected by armed conflict in their diverse efforts to build lasting peace. To ensure their full, equal and meaningful participation in all stages of peace processes, we amplify their visions and demands, boost their efforts to shape peace processes and connect women and feminist peacebuilders within conflict-affected countries and across regions impacted by armed conflict.
We have been working in Colombia since 2016 with our Peacebuilding After Armed Conflict programme. Since the signing of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerrilla group, we have been advocating for the participation of women affected by the conflict in its implementation. In our Peacebuilding During Peace Negotiations programme, launched in 2025, we are also committed to ensuring that women participate in ongoing, locally rooted peace negotiations. Women and women's organisations must be equally represented at negotiations with local armed groups.
As part of a pilot programme in Sudan, we are connecting peace activists in the Dilling region in the south of Sudan with Sudanese activists who have lived in exile since 2023 due to the ongoing violence. Together with our local partner, we promote the targeted development of skills that these women can use to participate fully and meaningfully in peace negotiations and drive social change.
Feminists Connecting for Peace is our global network of women and feminist peacebuilders – from grassroots activists affected by armed conflict to women participating in formal peace negotiations. Since emerging from the initiative “1000 women for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize”, it has evolved into a worldwide community for feminist peacebuilding. Joining the network provides members visibility, safety and access to knowledge and resources.
What barriers do women and feminist peacebuilders face in Africa – what means do they have to overcome them? How can generations of peacebuilders work together to make their demands heard and achieve lasting peace in their countries and regions? These were among the questions discussed at the first regional meeting of the Feminists Connecting for Peace network in Africa.
In May 2024, Our House, the Belarusian International Centre for Civil Initiatives based in Lithuania, organised three webinars for Belarusian women dissidents to network, engage and share on issues related to feminist peace, peacebuilding, conflict prevention, militarisation and security. A total of 53 women anonymously participated in the webinars to discuss peace, non-violence and the challenges faced by women peacebuilders in the region. This project, supported by our Feminist Peace Initiatives, helped build solidarity among the women.
From March 2021 to June 2022 we organised a series of workshops on feminist peace policy, disarmament and demilitarisation, together with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
In November 2024, SOFAD with the support of PeaceWomen Across the Globe’s Feminist Peace Initiatives carried out a Women’s Peace Table to contribute to peace in the Great Lakes sub-region. The Women’s Peace Table facilitated the collaboration between the neighbouring countries DRC, Burundi and Rwanda by facilitating dialogue between different women, including some whose husbands, children and brothers are members of armed groups.
Our collaboration with WILPF Lebanon initially set out to spotlight the critical connection between small arms proliferation and violence against women in Lebanon. However, the conflict between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, that escalated in September 2024, altered the situation dramatically. The crisis demanded swift adaptation to ensure not only the physical safety but also to support the psychological and emotional wellbeing of the peacebuilders impacted by the conflict.
Our publication "Feminists Connecting for Peace" offers a platform to activists from our network to share and exchange their experiences and analyses on an annually changing topic.
For two intensive days, 17 peace activists from 10 Asian countries explored the different roles that women play in peacebuilding. For the participants, the meeting in the Philippine capital Manila was a rare “time out” to reflect on their work, gain new perspectives and strengthen solidarity across borders. We also discussed what added value our Feminists Connecting for Peace network can offer in order to gain insights for further networking and advocacy activities.
Two workshops for 60 women peacebuilders directly affected by the armed conflict focused on strengthening their capacity to increase the visibility of their peace work and to advocate for their inclusion in peace processes. The workshops, organised by Badya Centre for Integrated Development Services, took place in Dilling, South Kordofan State, in southern Sudan in February 2025. We supported these workshops with our Feminist Peace Initiatives.
At the PeaceWomen Across the Globe-hosted webinar, “Leveraging feminist networks for advocacy”, three inspiring and experienced activists and peacebuilders shared key insights on how and why feminist networks play a key role in advocacy. Rabab Baldo (Sudan), Uma Mishra-Newbery (Switzerland) and Karen Tañada (Philippines) collectively have decades of experience in feminist engagement shaped by diverse contexts and trajectories.
With our Feminist Peace Initiatives (FPI), we support local and feminist peace initiatives and projects of our network members. The aim is to promote innovative ideas for feminist peace work quickly, in a straightforward manner and for a limited period of time. In this way, we enable network members to try out new ideas that correspond to their own priorities and those of their communities.
Our advocacy aims to create political impact and achieve a feminist vision of peace. The focus is on the implementation of key human rights instruments that form the basis for a peaceful and gender-just world.
On 8 July 2024, the Brest Regional Court in Belarus sentenced the prominent Belarusian human rights defender and 2024 Nobel Peace Prize nominee Olga Karatch to 12 years' imprisonment and a fine of 170,000 euros under five criminal articles, including, among others, “conspiracy or attempted coup to seize state power by unconstitutional means”, “discrediting the Republic of Belarus” and “defamation of Aliaksandr Lukashenka”, the Belarusian president. Olga Karatch is the head of the Lithuania-based International Centre for Civil Initiatives Our House, which campaigns for the rights of conscientious objectors in Belarus. She is a feminist peace activist who promotes non-violent resistance to the militarised regime and society in Belarus and a member of our global network Feminists Connecting for Peace. We call for Olga Karatch’s protection and the respect of international human rights law.
Through our publications and multimedia products you can learn more about the focal areas of our work, about our projects, programmes and political work, and about the activities of the members of our global network Feminists Connecting for Peace.
Our network is spread out across the world, yet we feel and act in solidarity with each other. Supporting feminist peacebuilders and making their work visible is at the core of our vision and practice. The "Feminists Connecting for Peace" magazine is a co-creation of activists from our global network. The first edition focuses on Demilitarization.
The second issue of the magazine is dedicated to the topic of "Security".
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, there have been calls for rearmament and higher military spending. As a feminist peace organisation, we oppose the claim that more weapons lead to more security. We call for demilitarisation and disarmament, because this is the only way to achieve real peace and genuine security. Our board member Margo OkazawaRey and our programme and network manager Annemarie Sancar explain why the world is at a crossroads today.
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.
In this issue of our newsletter, our Ukrainian partners report on the changes they have noticed over the last two years in the participants of our meetings with war-affected women from Ukraine. In another article, you will find out which topics were at the centre of discussions for 17 peace activists from 10 Asian countries at the network meeting in Manila. You can also find out what was on the programme during the visit of Sudanese peace activist Rabab Baldo and Colombian human rights lawyer Luz Marina Monzón Cifuentes in Bern.
With the Feminist Peace Initiatives, we finance projects that arise from our network. Events organised by us or our partners provide the impetus from which new ideas emerge and are passed on. This, too, is what feminist peace work is about