Mind the GAPS Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS)

Northern Ireland is key to understanding the domestic implementation of the WPS agenda and how the UK applies this to a region that falls within their borders. The fifth UK National Action Plan on WPS included domestic aspects of WPS, for the first time, which GAPS has advocated for many years. This now opens up the space to discuss what good WPS in Northern Ireland looks like and how the UK can support this. In this episode, we create space to learn from and understand how women-led peacebuilding in Northern Ireland has shaped how gender, peace and security are understood both inside and outside of Northern Ireland. Eva Tabbasam, Director, and Detmer Kremer, Policy Advocacy and Communications Coordinator, both at GAPS, are joined by Eileen Weir of the Shankill Women’s Centre, Jane Morrice, former deputy speaker of the Northern Irish Assembly, and Jonna Monaghan, of GAPS member Women’s Platform. To learn more, read Women’s Platform’s report A Women’s Vision here, which asked women of all backgrounds in NI what NI would look like, if it worked for women. 

In response to the ongoing violence in Palestine, GAPS, together with Oxfam, Madre and WILPF, hosted Palestine is a feminist issue: a conversation on Women Peace and Security in Palestine. This episode is a lightly edited version of that March 12 2024 event. The conversation recognises how the genocide and conflict are forcing the international development and women’s rights sector to respond and grapple with current violence as well as the long-standing history of occupation and apartheid. However, approaches to the conflict have often contradicted the stated feminist values and commitments to women’s rights from states, multilateral organisations and civil society. The speakers are Bushra Khalidi, Palestine Policy Lead at Oxfam; Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School and Queens University School of Law; Laura Varella, Disarmament Programme Coordinator at WILPF; and Maram Zatara, Advocacy Unit Coordinator at the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling, based in Palestine. The conversation was chaired by GAPS Director Eva Tabbasam.

Season 2 starts with a discussion on the linkages between Women Peace Security (WPS) and feminist foreign policy (FFP). Joining our Director Eva Tabbasam in conversation are Toni Haastrup, Chair in Global Politics at the University of Manchester, and Ray Acheson, Director of Reaching Critical Will at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. The conversation with these two experts includes an in-depth look at how states with FFPs fail to uphold feminist principles, especially when it comes to confronting power injustices and settler colonialism. Responses to violence against Indigenous Peoples, including Palestinians and First Nations are illustrative, as are increased arms sales. The conversation considers lessons learned from WPS,  interrogates FFP and asks how can this be more than a pink rebranding of the same old patriarchal approaches to policy?



See the full GAPS Beyond Feminist Foreign Policy Briefing Series.

In the final episode, Florence and Eva review the different themes discussed throughout the season, note the emerging themes necessary to support women’s rights and women-led organisations, and check-in on progress of the United Kingdom’s implementation of its fifth National Action Plan. Florence Waller – Carr is Policy and Advocacy Manager and Eva Tabbasam is Director, both at Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS).

This episode discusses women’s participation in decision making across peacebuilding, politics and more. The adoption of resolution 1325 has meant that the importance of women’s participation is recognised but in practice women are still not being meaningful included. Genuine participation must include women from all parts of society. Host, Florence Waller – Carr (GAPS Policy and Advocacy Manager) is joined by Nathali Rátiva, a PhD candidate in interdisciplinary gender and equalities studies at the University of Salamanca and a Gender Officer at NIMD-Colombia, and Eva Tabbasam who is the Director at GAPS UK, a network of development, human rights, humanitarian and peacebuilding INGOs.

This episode discusses the funding landscape of WPS globally and in the UK, as well as the the research findings and recommendations from GAPS’ Key to Change Research on funding women's rights organisations and women led organisations in fragile and conflict affected contexts. Host, Florence Waller - Carr (GAPS Policy and Advocacy Manager) is joined by Helen Kezie-Nwoha (@keziehelen) who is the Executive Director of the Women’s International Peace Centre, a regional organization that promotes women’s participation in peace building and Eva Tabbasam (@aasmaeva1) who is the is Director at GAPS UK, a network of development, human rights, humanitarian and peacebuilding INGOs.

You can find out more about GAPS’ work and our future plans on our Twitter @GAPS_Network and by signing up for our monthly newsletter on our website. You can contact us at info@gaps-uk.org.

The Key to Change research mentioned in this podcast can be found here: http://bitly.ws/HnH5

This podcast is made through the support of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs through their funding of the LEAP4Peace Consortium, which GAPS is a member of. This podcast is hosted by Eva Tabbasam and Florence Waller - Carr, and it is written, produced by Florence Waller – Carr and supported by the GAPS Team. Our thanks also to Andrew O’Connor at Saferworld for the technical support and to Jimena Duran at NIMD, who are the Consortium lead for LEAP4Peace. The music used in this podcast was produced by Tribe of Noise PRO.