Women have long been key partners and leaders in peace across Africa, and the African First Ladies Peace Mission (AFLPM) was created to help further women’s representation in promoting peace and security throughout the continent. Fatoumatta Bah Barrow, the first lady of The Gambia and the president of AFLPM, and former Malawi President Joyce Banda discuss how USIP and AFLPM are working together to reduce and prevent violent conflict.
When she was merely a week old, Jaha Mapenzi Dukureh underwent female genital mutilation in her native Gambia. But the 26-year-old mother of three, now living in the United States, knows the procedure is not something that happens only in some far-off country. She is an outspoken advocate for ending the custom. At a daylong conference at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Dukureh and other experts and government officials detailed the difficulties—and possibilities—of ending a practice that has bee...
Elections have emerged as one of the most important, and most contentious, features of political life on the African continent. In the first half of this decade, there were more than 20 national elections, serving largely as capstones of peace processes or transitions to democracies.
Tensions between Israel and the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah are at their highest point since their 2006 war. They have exchanged tit-for-tat attacks since October, displacing tens of thousands from northern Israel and southern Lebanon. But in recent weeks, both sides have escalated the violence and rhetoric. USIP’s Mona Yacoubian looks at what’s driving this escalation, what each side is trying to tell the other and the diplomatic efforts underway to lower the temperature.
Potential areas of cooperation between the Taliban and the international community, such as private sector development and alternative livelihoods to now-banned opium poppy cultivation, will be on the agenda at a meeting of international envoys for Afghanistan hosted by the United Nations in Doha from June 30 to July 1. Discussions on women’s rights are not included, as the Taliban consider it an internal matter. This is ironic, given that the private sector is one area where the Taliban allow limited women’s participation.