Inside Geneva: women in peace

On Inside Geneva this week: who are the peacemakers?

“Women are completely absent in high-level politics and from high-level peacemaking at the moment. However, this is only the visible part. Our focus has been so much on US President Donald Trump,” says Sara Hellmüller, professor of International Relations at the Geneva Graduate Institute. 

Two peace experts, both women, give us their take.

“Traditionally, we have seen a low representation of women as mediators. There is a systemic issue inherent in how we understand peace processes, in which women are excluded,” says Hiba Qasas, executive director of the Principles for Peace organisation. 

Can a few men in suits create real sustainable peace? Is there a role for women?

“Women are still working for peace every day in different conflict contexts. They are still involved in peace processes. Maybenot at the kind of transactional, deal‑making level that Trump is engaged in, and that the media mostly focuses on, but these activities have not simply stopped,” says Hellmüller. 

So is there a recipe for peacemaking?

“It is very hard to say there is a blueprint. I don’t believe in blueprints. I don’t believe in toolboxes. I believe that peace is a much broader concept than political peace, and that it needs to be felt and experienced by people,” says Qasas.

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva to listen to the full interview. 

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

Transcript

Welcome And Global Peace Headlines

SPEAKER_02 0:57

This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen Folkes, and this is a production from Swisinfo, the international public media company of Switzerland.

SPEAKER_10 1:12

In today's program, indirect talks between Israel and Hamas on ending the Gaza War have entered a third day. Senior international mediators, including the US envoy Steve Whitkoff, and Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have also arrived in Sham al-Sheikh.

SPEAKER_09 1:28

Women are completely absent in kind of high-level politics at the moment, and this high-level peacemaking. However, this is the visible part.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

We're also watching in Moscow, where right now President Vladimir Putin is hosting U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law.

SPEAKER_08 1:47

Traditionally, we've seen that there's been low representation of women as mediators. The statistics now is under 10% of negotiators are women in 2023. There is a systemic issue by design, how we understand peace processes, uh, that you find women are being excluded.

SPEAKER_06 2:04

So the talk's wrapped up, but we understand the American delegation led by the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner and the Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff, then went to meet with the Ukrainians, but they will be uh resuming the talks on Iran, we understand, in about an hour.

SPEAKER_09 2:18

Women are still working for peace every day in different conflict contexts. They are still involved in peace process, maybe not at kind of this transactional peacemaking, deal-making level that Trump is engaged with and that the media focuses on mostly. But these activities have not just stopped.

SPEAKER_08 2:35

It's very hard to say there's a blueprint. I don't believe in blueprints. I don't believe in toolboxes. I believe that peace is a much broader conception than political peace, and it needs to be felt and experienced by the people.

SPEAKER_09 3:17

My name is Sarah Helmiller. I'm a research professor at the Geneva Gradit Institute, and my specialization is in peace studies.

SPEAKER_08 3:25

My name is Hiba Khasos, and I'm the founding executive director of the Principles for Peace Foundation, which is a Geneva peace-building uh organization and a think-a-doo-tank that supports decision makers and peacemakers around the world.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Russia rejected the offer of a truce and instead has been attacking Ukraine relentlessly.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Tonight, violence spiraling out of control in Sudan. Israeli forces have bombed multiple locations across Gaza, killing at least nine Palestinians. The attacks are the latest violations of the ceasefire that came into effect four months ago.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

So clearly, we're not going in the right direction. And yet we hear a lot about peace and claims that multiple wars have been solved.

SPEAKER_05 4:27

We're averaging one a month. There is only one left. Never. There never will be either.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

So perhaps first, let's hear from peace specialist Professor Sarah Helmuller of Geneva's Graduate Institute. How do we define peace? Is it more than the absence of violence?

SPEAKER_09 4:50

It's a challenging time for peace, we know it. It's uh we're in a time where there's more talk about security than peace. But I would also say that depending on how we define peace, it's very linked to security. And how we define security also is very linked to peace.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Do those definitions for us, because some people will say security is peace.

Negative Peace Versus Positive Peace

SPEAKER_09 5:11

Yeah, so when we speak about peace, we can of course distinguish negative and positive peace, which is something, a distinction that is quite well known. So negative peace would be the end of violence, so the end of physical violence, and positive peace would mean longer-term sustainable peace, so not only the end of physical violence, but also some form of good governance in the long-term and stable state-society relationships.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Now that we've had the definitions, we have a US president who says that he has solved eight wars. They would be the Democratic Republic of Congo, he says Gaza, Thailand, Cambodia, Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN in New York, was in Geneva just a couple of days ago. He also said the Western Western Sahara. I see your eyebrows very slightly raised.

SPEAKER_09 6:04

Yeah, I mean, resolving wars is uh, of course, again, we need to kind of go back to definitions. Of course, he has tried to address all of these conflicts, and especially on Gaza, for instance, you know, we had the Gaza peace plan, and we saw a ceasefire actually, I mean, more or less holding. It was, of course, violated several times, but at least it reduced the violence. So if we are in the kind of realm of a more kind of the negative peace definition, that peace or resolving conflicts means actually reducing violence, then maybe he has achieved something. But if we think about peace in terms of longer-term sustainable peace, then we're still far away from a sustainable peace. If I think of the context like DRC, of course, if if we look at especially the eastern part of the country, people don't yet live in what we could call kind of a positive peace situation where they have their main needs satisfied and they can sleep calmly at night without hearing gunshots.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Donald Trump is getting very excited about his Board of Peace. He says it could solve many of the world's problems. But what is it? Who'll be on it, and what will it do?

SPEAKER_07 7:12

US President Donald Trump would be chairman for life and have the final say on all matters.

Can Leaders Claim They Solved Wars?

SPEAKER_05 7:19

We just created the Board of Peace, which I think is uh gonna be amazing. I wish the United Nations could do more. I wish we didn't need a Board of Peace, but the United Nations, and you know, with all the wars they settled, the United Nations never helped me on one war.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Well, while the conflict in DRC simmers on, we now have a brand new organization aimed at peacemaking, Donald Trump's much talked-about Board of Peace. As we have discussed in earlier podcasts, there are many seasoned diplomats who have doubts about the board, and European countries have mainly so far chosen not to get involved. So what do our two peace experts think of it? You might be surprised. Here's Hiba Kassas of Principles for Peace, who, as a Palestinian herself, reminds us the focus of the board was originally supposed to be Gaza.

Trump’s Board Of Peace Explained

SPEAKER_08 8:15

Naturally, uh, one has a lot of questions. You know, I'm a realist, but also I'm a possibilist, so I tend to think of the positive and the challenges at the same time. I will start with the positive. I think the positive is that there is a movement around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The situation in Gaza has been absolutely devastating. And um it's a mammoth challenge, and the solution will not be between the Israelis and the Palestinians because a bilateral track have failed for the longest of times, and there's an asymmetry and all of that. So this needs a regional and international response. And in this um in this era, the fact that President Trump have initiated and pushed for a ceasefire in close collaboration with regional partners is a positive step in the right direction because it did stop or allowed us to achieve a ceasefire. Now, the composition of the Board of Peace as a Board of Peace, if it was only for Gaza, one would say, okay, this is a very good, you know, mechanism that would ensure that there continues to be some leverage from the US, because frankly, the only entity today that can have leverage over Israel is the United States. And having President Trump at the helm of that, with the leverage that he has over the Israeli side, is a positive. And having regional players like the Saudis and the Qataris and the Turks and those who also have influence over Hamas or or have influence over the reconstruction or are very close, like Egypt, to the borders and have a very important role is a positive. Of course, we worry about an expanded mandate. Is it really focused on Gaza or beyond? And of course, you do worry, and as a Palestinian, of course, I worry about the level of Palestinian participation in it, because it does not have the right level of participation. However, we do welcome any move that can advance a political solution. And the Board of Peace is one of those. But I think we still have a lot of questions around it.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Sarah Helmuller, too, has questions, but wants to see the positive.

SPEAKER_09 10:09

So two things. I think first of all, it could be worse. So I mean, imagine that the Trump didn't create the Board of Peace but a Board of War. So I think it shows that peace is still something that world leaders aspire to, irrespective of how we define it.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Or why they aspire to it. Or why they aspire to it.

SPEAKER_09 10:30

Exactly. But even if it's for very individualistic purposes, I'm still hopeful that something good will come out of it. Even if it's, you know, whatever the motivation behind it. But if sometimes the outcomes are positive in the sense that it can reduce violence, then I mean I welcome anything that is kind of for the purpose of peace. Now, with regards to the Board of Peace in particular, I think it has many problematic aspects, of course. It's very exclusive, it it gives a very exclusive right to the chairman. So it's only talk about chairman, not chairperson. And it's of course a chairpersonship for life. Trump has a uh almost um exclusive veto right on all decisions. And also, you know, some people have compared it to the UN Security Council. I think we're still far away from something that could even come close to the UN Security Council or even the UN Charter, which is much more aspirational, it has human rights in it.

Gaza Leverage And Mandate Concerns

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Sarah used the word exclusive there. Should that sound alarm bells? When the board was formally inaugurated, the members were men in suits. What about women? Many peace negotiators suggest a peace process cannot be successful without women being included. But Hiba Casas has a more nuanced view.

SPEAKER_08 11:50

I think this is uh a systemic problem that in many of the high-stakes rooms they default to um elite actors, to uniform, to those with proximity to force and to uh power and politics and incentives. And you do find a lot more focus on those who are close to the violence and force question, or those who are more focused to the resources. And often in many societies these are not women. And I think traditionally we've seen that there's been low representation of women as mediators. I think the the statistics now is under 10% of negotiators are women in 2023, and I think 14% or so of uh women as mediators. It's not like there aren't women engaging around these issues, it's just that you don't find as much attention to that. And also there is a systemic issue by design, how we understand peace processes, uh, that you find women are being excluded. Having said that, I want to say something, and it might not be, you know, uh make me very popular. You know, there's also a lot of emphasis on inclusion as representation. And it becomes a bit of a ticking-the-box exercise. Is it about counting the women or making women voices and perspectives count? So I do call for inclusiveness beyond the narrow understanding of representation. It has to be meaningful, it has to be uh influential, and it also needs to be rooted in in in society and rooted with those with links to power, politics, and incentives. Um and I do believe that women, we bring a different style of leadership into these processes, which is fundamentally linked to how we can build legitimacy around these processes.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

That word legitimacy is one we keep coming back to. How is a peace process really legitimate? How can a peace be sustained if the process is not inclusive? Sarah Hellmuller does find the absence of women concerning, particularly because even just a few years ago, there seemed to be much more awareness that women needed to be involved.

Why Women Vanish From Big Talks

SPEAKER_09 13:58

This is really quite worrisome. I think this is a general trend that we see in peacemaking. So we see a shift, I would say, from the comprehensive peacemaking that aspires towards conflict resolutions or towards a comprehensive peace agreement through an inclusive and impartial process, which especially in the 1990s was kind of the dominant way to make peace, often led, of course, by the United Nations. We see a shift away from this kind of way to address conflicts towards a transactional um peacemaking approach. And this transactional approach is focused most of all on a kind of more bilateral deal-making, short-term, so more than negative peace, reduction of violence objective. Plus, as you mentioned, it's very exclusive. So it doesn't necessarily aspire to also include broader societal actors in peace negotiations, peace building, but it's just focused on the main belligerents and mostly on male military actors.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Some people might say, I'll just play devil's advocate with you here. Some people might say, well, but if that approach works, let's do it. Let's do the transactional. That's what these guys understand. What would you say to counter that? I mean, give me an example of an inclusive peace process women have been involved in that you can point to and say, that worked.

SPEAKER_09 15:15

So we know, I mean, an example would of course be Colombia, which is frequently mentioned where women and also other societal groups, victims group, and civil society played a very important role in the peace process. And research has shown that peace agreements that were negotiated with the participation of societal actors, civil society and women, that they are more durable. So we have clear evidence for that. I think I wouldn't dismiss the transactional approach completely. Sometimes we have also seen that in some peace processes we need at least a moment of exclusive talks with the belligerents because they are the ones who hold the weapon. So they need to agree to stop shooting at each other, let me put it um bluntly like this. But this is not the end of it. This may be a beginning, this may be part of a peace process, but we need much more for the peace agreement or the peace deal, whatever it is, to be sustainable in the long term. It needs to include also society.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Inclusivity, legitimacy. But what we have seen right here in Geneva over Ukraine and over Iran are small groups of men. They talk about peace, but a phrase they also use very often is we need to make a deal. Perhaps the word peace means different things to different people. Hiba Kassas warns against the word being hijacked by those who will not have to live with the consequences of a failed peace process.

Transactional Deals Versus Legitimate Peace

SPEAKER_08 16:45

I think this is this has really uh been a problem, and frankly, why Principles for Peace was created was to address this issue that there's such a narrow dominance of the understanding of what peace delivers. You know, we've for so long we've equated peace processes with cessations of hostilities or ceasefires. And what at best we've been uh successful at as international community is achieving a series of ceasefires. But where we fail is in sustaining peace or preventing conflict in many in many cases. So there is a narrow understanding of peace. And at Principles for Peace, um, based on global evidence, so this is not my personal opinion, this is based in evidence, there's a much broader conception of peace for those who live it. It's peace that delivers legitimacy, peace that is anchored in accountable security and security as a public good, not as excessive use of force, it's uh it's protection of civilians, it's dignity, it's access to services. So it's a much broader understanding of peace. And at the heart of a sustainable peace, there needs to be two key anchors. One is legitimacy, trust in institutions, accountable governance, accountable security. And the second part is also dignity, how people experience peace in their in their daily life and how the state-society relationships are structured also around that. So we do have a problem in how we think about peace, and we do have a problem in how we how we design peace processes. The problem today, I think, in the global peacemaking spaces, is not reaching agreements. The biggest challenge today, the problem is operational. It's how do you move from ceasefires into sustainable implementation of agreements? And the evidence shows us, you know, in the past three decades, 90% of conflicts have happened in countries that experienced civil war before. So it's not a question that we are not able to broker agreements, it's a question of implementing these agreements. And a third of peace agreements go completely unimplemented. And Gaza today is the ultimate test. It is one of these examples. How do we move from a ceasefire, from a framework, from even a Security Council resolution that provided for the longest of times a frame in Security Council resolution 2803, in having also a structure around transitional governance, stabilization force, and a mechanism to mobilize investment into delivering tangible uh good governance to the people, reconstruction, restoration of basic services, dignity to the people of Gaza, who 90% of them are displaced. So this is this is a very concrete example, and we can also think about what's happening in Ukraine, a very different uh setup. So it's it's very hard to say there's a blueprint. I don't believe in blueprints. I don't believe in in um toolboxes. I I believe that you know uh peace is a much broader conception than political peace, and it needs to be felt and experienced by the people, and they determine how that um translates into their daily lives.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

That's another reason for including women. The women of Gaza or Ukraine will have to live daily with the consequences of the decision made by those men in suits or uniforms. Will those men think rebuilding hospitals should take priority over restarting businesses? Will it be important to demine the paths children take to school as fast as possible? Sarah Helmuller suggests that, although left out of the big performative diplomacy we have seen from the Board of Peace, women are still trying to ensure they have a say.

Legitimacy Dignity And Implementation Gaps

SPEAKER_09 20:20

Women are completely absent in kind of high-level politics at the moment and this high-level peacemaking. However, I think what we have to consider is that this is the visible part, and our kind of focus has been so much on Trump. And I think he has really taken the focus away from all the other things that are still happening. So women are still working for peace every day in different conflict contexts. They are still, you know, having peace processes, being involved in peace processes, maybe not at kind of this transactional peacemaking, deal-making level that Trump is engaged with and that the media focuses on mostly. But these activities have not just stopped. Having said that, I think there is now more need for all of us who still believe in this more comprehensive approach to peacemaking. Things that we took for granted we can no longer take for granted. So it means we really need to think what is uh truly important to us, and then build the coalitions around those values and really fight for it.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

And that brings us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. My thanks to Sarah Helmuller and to Hiba Kasas for their time and their perspectives. We hope you enjoyed the program and do join us again in two weeks when we'll be asking a question that right now everyone in Geneva seems to be asking: can multilateralism, and in particular, the United Nations, survive? And if the answer is yes, what should a new, reformed UN look like?

SPEAKER_07 22:05

It's worth remembering that when the UN charter was adopted in 1945, 50 countries were present at the table, and today there are 193 member states. So almost three-quarters of the UN's membership has not had a say in the rules of the game that they are now bound by and are very frustrated by that lack of voice and representation.

SPEAKER_04 22:24

On many fronts, the UN is doing an indispensable work every day, you know, bringing bringing food to hungry people, ensuring practical standards of how we cooperate on the planet, and you know, most countries follow the UN rules and principles on an everyday basis, so not too bad. You know, Doug Hamashul uh said that the UN was not made to take us to heaven but to prevent us from going to hell, and I mean that's still it you know, after nineteen forty five, there's been no new world wars.

Women Working Offstage And Closing

SPEAKER_07 22:51

The UN overall, I think it's going to go through a very difficult and dark period. I hope that coming out of that, you know, at sometimes you just have to hit rock bottom, that coming out of that we can emerge with an what I often refer to as a new global social contract. And if that difficult period leads us to something better, then that's something worth worth fighting for.

SPEAKER_04 23:15

The history is that after every severe crisis, we come together and try to make a better system, which is what happened after the two world wars. First, we had the not so successful uh attempt of the League of Nations, but then the much more successful UN, also learning from what was wrong with the League of Nations. I hope we don't need to relearn this through the Third World War or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Join us on April 14th for that. I'm Imogen Folks. Thanks again for listening.