The annual meeting of the Nordic Women Mediators (NWM) took place in Helsinki on 2-4 November 2022. Members from all the five national networks came together for a three-day meeting discussing peace and mediation in a changing security environment.
The Annual Meeting was opened by a high-level panel on Navigating peace in the current global security environment, hosted by the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto. He was joined in the panel by Former President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, Chair of the Governing Board of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund Stefano Manservisi and Executive Director in the African Development Bank and a member of NWM-Denmark Mette Knudsen.
The main topic for this year’s annual meeting was Rethinking Women and the Global Security Landscape, with two underlying areas, Rethinking Nordic cooperation in light of the changes in European security landscape and Ukraine. The NWM members were joined by the NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security Irene Fellin in discussions on how to promote women’s participation in a changed security environment in Europe. The Ambassador of Ukraine to Finland Olga Dibrova and the Director and Founder of the Mediation and Dialogue Research Center in Kyiv Tetiana Kyselova participated in the final day of the annual meeting. Together with the NWM they were exploring how to strengthen cooperation with women in Ukraine to amplify their voices and how to support the demand for inclusion of women in mediation processes.
NWM-Norway was well represented with eleven participants. Torunn L. Tryggestad and Stine A. Bosheim participated on behalf of the PRIO Centre on Gender, Peace and Security (PRIO GPS), which serves as operational partner together with NOREF.
The meeting was co-organized by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs Finland, The NWM-Finland and CMI-Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation.
