Introductory Remarks
Tim Enderlin
Head of the Peace and Human Rights Division, Federal Department for Foreign Affairs, Switzerland.
The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland (FDFA)
Mediation in Focus
Informal Leverage: Scaling the Formal Impact of Women's Engagement
The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland (FDFA), SWiPP
Despite their consistent contributions to conflict prevention, dialogue, mediation support, and peacebuilding at all levels, women remain largely excluded from formal mediation and negotiation processes, which continue to be dominated by political and military elites. This exclusion persists even as the broader peace mediation landscape grows more complex, marked by competing stakeholder interests, weakening international consensus on shared normative frameworks, and a decline in comprehensive peace agreements.
In this challenging environment, women and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda face mounting pressure to justify their relevance and continued presence in mediation spaces. The session's central question is how the informal influence and power women exercise can be translated into formal impact within mediation and peace processes, particularly at a moment when the broader peacebuilding framework itself appears stalled in formal settings.
Drawing on practitioners' first-hand experience across varied conflict contexts, the discussion aims to identify concrete strategies, mechanisms, and institutional innovations that have effectively bridged the gap between women's grassroots influence and their inclusion in formal processes. This includes examining how frontline mediation and negotiation work, advisory contributions, and civil society engagement can be more systematically connected to official negotiation and mediation tracks , helping move women's participation from the margins toward meaningful formal impact. The panel will be followed by 3 parallel workshops.
Speakers
Introductory Remarks
Speaker
Speaker
Speaker
Moderator
Mariana Groba Gomes
Senior Women Peace and Security Advisor
The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland (FDFA)
