The WPS Program recently published a peer-reviewed article in Agenda which illustrates how girls’ and young women’s grassroots activism can function as a source of innovative policymaking. This is the first of several forthcoming publications by the WPS Collective – a network of activist-scholars in Africa and the United States.
Access the full article here.
Shaping policy, sustaining peace: Intergenerational activism in the policy ecosystem [please bold title] Current discussions of peace and security-related policy in Africa focus disproportionately on the work of governmental actors, regional organisations, and the African Union. Implicit in such a framing is the assumption that policy change is driven primarily by state and international institutions. This paper pushes back on that assumption by showing how girls’ and young women’s grassroots activism can function as a source of innovative policymaking. Writing as a collective of activist-scholars on the ground in South Sudan, Sudan, Lesotho, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya and the United States, we identify four key strategies driving intergenerational peacebuilding work: working on multiple scales; building networks of care and solidarity; mobilising difference as a resource; and recognising that violence takes many shapes. By identifying key threads that link women and girls’ intergenerational organising work across diverse national contexts, we aim to expand core understandings of who counts as a policymaker.
Authors: Mikaela Luttrell-Rowland, Jessica Engebretson, Puleng Segalo & the Women, Peace and Security Collective
