ICAN, in partnership with the Permanent Missions of Norway, Sweden, and Canada, the United Kingdom Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office (UKFCDO), the Ministry of Gender, Child and Welfare of South Sudan, the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), and the National Transformational Leadership Institute (NTLI), convened a 1.5-day workshop to discuss how to strengthen community security as a localized, transformative approach for sustainable peace.
Wonder Woman: Not the Hero the UN Needs
For those of us who ever feel conflicted about the United Nations, the past month has been an exercise in managing absurd cognitive dissonance. First, on October 21 2016, the United Nations announced that the 1940s comic book heroine, Wonder Woman would be its new mascot for promoting the empowerment of women and girls.
The news naturally sent serious women around the world into a collective swirl, and then a reach for their golden lassoes, to capture the attention of an institution that seems perpetually tone deaf on the issue of basic equality and respect for half the world’s population. It also prompted female staff at the UN to protest in silence, through literally turning their backs on the occasion.
Then, on October 25th the UN Security Council held its annual open debate on the groundbreaking ‘Women, peace and security agenda’, now in its 16th year of existence – still full of promise, and yet barely realized. So what’s going on?
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