July 29, 2019: Last week, nine precedent-setting, traditionally male-led chiefdoms in Cameroon’s North allowed women to begin presenting women’s matters to chiefs. The women can also now represent themselves, taking over from the men who did it for them.

African women’s inclusion in peace processes has come about through years of efforts culminating in Femwise-Africa, a Network of African Women in Conflict Prevention and Mediation which was established and situated under the umbrella of the AU’s Panel of the Wise in July 2017. Femwise-Africa is working to help implement an ambitious Silence the Guns by 2020 agenda.

Catherine Samba-Panza, with considerable experience as a former president of a country in conflict, the Central African Republic, and Dr Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe, who brings on board the institutional memory of the AWCPD and is current chairperson of the AU Panel of the Wise, co-preside over FemWise.

Mukondeleli Mpeiwa, a young passionate peace builder with regional mediation and capacity building experience in Southern Africa heads the secretariat. FemWise-Africa is “a stepping-stone to ensure women set the agenda on especially health, water and food, building social capital and monitoring social contracts in each of our member states. In five years, an Africa with inclusive peace structures comprised of 50/50 women and youth with no food insecurity or maternal mortality is possible,” Dr Kazibwe says.

Read more: NDERITU: Men make war, women silence the guns, have you heard? (https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke)

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