This #IWD2025, we’re looking at ways we can #AccelerateAction towards gender equality in #peacebuilding processes. Despite increasing efforts to discredit and stop work on gender across the world, we know that gender transformative approaches help to reduce violence and build sustainable peace. In West Africa, our gender transformative approach has resulted in local leaders and security officials changing how they resolve conflict and make decisions, to ensure the experiences, concerns and requests of women and young people are taken into account. Now, women from religious minority groups who previously experienced intense discrimination and were denied access to basic needs are working directly with community leaders for change. How did we do this? ➡️ By carrying out gender-sensitive conflict analysis with religious leaders, police and former members of armed groups, we helped them to understand how different people are affected by violence, and how attitudes, behaviours and decision-making structures can perpetuate these issues. ➡️ By facilitating discussions on gender norms, we supported older leaders and younger men to value qualities such as listening over physical strength and violence. ➡️ By bringing together men from different backgrounds - such as unemployed youth, former armed group members and traditional leaders - we helped them to understand how levels of power affect people’s experiences of violence and their opportunities to shape peace. Now they apply that lens to their work with women and other excluded groups. Learn more about our approach here: https://buff.ly/tEHEdbH Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
