KPSRL seminar ‘Religion and Women, Peace and Security Agenda’

As a KPSRL member, I have been invited to attend this seminar on Religion and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda organized by Cordaid and the Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law (KPSRL).

Yet due to the latest restrictive measures to battle the COVID-19 corona epidemic, those who have registered for the event to attend it in person (including me) no longer are allowed to do so – and the event has been delayed and altered at the last minute.

The following texts are adopted and adapted mainly from www.kpsrl.org/event/religion-and-the-women-peace-and-security-wps-agenda  (accessed 30 September 2020):

Religion and the ‘Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda’

Harnessing the potential of religion to improve opportunities for women in the most fragile contexts

What potential does religion have to advance the WPS Agenda? How can we bridge religious actors and WPS stakeholders to create unexpected alliances? How can we focus on the opportunities that engaging religion offers to localizing the WPS agenda, while acknowledging its limitations?

These questions form the core of the event “Religion and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda”, organized by Cordaid and supported by the Knowledge Management Fund.

Event description
2020 marks a significant year for the WPS Agenda and community. The momentum of the 20th anniversary of UNSC resolution 1325 encourages thinking about promising ideas to enhance and improve the Agenda. One such idea: harnessing religion in furtherance of WPS. For the majority of the world’s population, religion shapes their everyday life. How might we build on the centrality of religion to people’s lives to achieve implementation of the WPS Agenda?

This event brings together experts holding a multitude of perspectives to further explore the relationship between WPS and religion. October 1st will also serve as the kick-off to create a Community of Practice that will aim to share and facilitate knowledge exchange and explore ways to integrate the nexus between religion and the WPS agenda into our daily work.

The event will be hybrid, meaning it is both possible attend in person or online.

We will be sharing updates on speakers and more details about the program. If you would like further detail or have queries relating to the event, please contact Anne Kwakkenbos at: Anne.Kwakkenbos@cordaid.org.

ALERT: COVID ADAPTATIONS

Dear participants,

In yesterday’s press conference by Dutch Prime Minister Rutte and Health Minister De Jonge, stricter measures were announced in order to control the spread of the Corona virus in the Netherlands.

These measures have direct consequences for our event on the 1st of October, and as Cordaid we decided that it will no longer be possible and/or responsible to host the event in-person. Therefore, we have had to make the difficult decision of changing the nature of this event at this point. The new measures require a considerable change in the set-up of the event, and within this short timeframe, we believe this change to for example an all-day online event, would not do justice to our incredible list of speakers and the importance of discussing the subject of the event.

Over the past 24 hours we had to rethink and reorganize the event in such a way that an alternative would reflect the inspiring list of speakers and the value of starting the dialogue on the role of religion for the WPS agenda, while at the same time ensuring you as participants would not be in an all day long online event.

We can already inform you that we are working on online webinars/sessions that will be released in the week of the 5th and the 10th of October in close cooperation with our amazing speakers and experts. We will use our mailing list and our LinkedIn group to share the content. The webinars will be available to be watched whenever is convenient for you.

We hope the webinars/sessions will be inspiring for all of you, since in the week of the 12th till the 16th of October we will organize 2 or 3 live sessions for those who are interested, to discuss together some of the lessons shared by the speakers, to learn from your experiences, and to see how we can design the Community of Practice in the best way possible. You would only have to attend 1 live session, but we want to give you the opportunity to see what fits your schedule best.

We ask for your understanding, that we cannot share all the information in detail yet, since we are currently very busy redesigning the process, but we will come back to you ASAP.

Although these changes in the form of the event are unfortunate, we are excited to present an alternative to you to kickstart the Community of Practice nonetheless. We want to thank you again for your interest in our event and your enthusiasm about the topic. We hope to have informed you sufficiently for now but as always, do not hesitate to contact us for any other questions.

I also want to use this opportunity to thank the three amazing young women (and invaluable interns) who have been working tirelessly for weeks to make this event happen, and still have energy to work on the new set up.

Hanna Scheffer, Ester Versnel and Rebecca Boogaard, thank you so much for you hard work! Your flexibility and creativity has been amazing.

I hope all of you remain healthy and safe, and we will keep you informed!

Warm regards,

Anne Kwakkenbos, Expert Gender, Peace & Security at Cordaid