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.
Last Friday, the foreign ministers of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) met in Washington to sign an agreement to end 30 years of conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes region. The peace deal was accompanied by commitments to build a “regional economic integration framework” and promises of U.S. investment in eastern DRC’s abundant critical mineral reserves, among other commercial agreements.
Israel’s stunning and sophisticated June 13 attack on Iran set off a worrying 12-day escalatory spiral. Iran responded in short order with ballistic missile and drone strikes, which led to a series of tit-for-tat exchanges between the two sides. A cease-fire is now in place -- but will it hold?