Who's making policy? What difference does it make?

An international conference on gender-inclusive decision making for peace with justice

October 18-20, 2006
Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice
San Diego, CA

Co-Convened by
Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice (IPJ), and
United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

In partnership with
Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights,
Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces,
Heinrich Boell Foundation, Institute for Women's Policy Research,
Women Impacting Public Policy

Key Conference Speakers and Facilitators Include 

Dee Aker, Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice

Elahe Amani, Women’s Intercultural Network

Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange and Code Pink

Amy Caiazza, Institute for Women’s Policy Research

Carol Cohn, Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights

Anja H. Ebnöther, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF)

Katherine Ferrey, World Bank

Ronne Froman, City of San Diego

Anne Marie Goetz, UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, UNIFEM

Gitti Hentschel, Feminist Institute Heinrich Boell Foundation

Barbara Kasoff, Women Impacting Public Policy

Liisa Kiianlinna, Kuopio Administrative Court, Finland

Susan Kindervatter, InterAction

Ron Kirkemo, Point Loma Nazarene University

James Kok, Government of Southern Sudan

Comfort Lamptey, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO)

Jensine Larsen, World Pulse Magazine

Sarah Martin, Refugees International

Miria Matembe, former Minster of Ethics and Integrity of Uganda

Richard E. (Rick) Matland, Loyola University in Chicago

Michael Nagler, University of California–Berkeley

Joyce Neu, Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice

Rebecca Okwaci, secretary general, Women Action for Development

Jacqueline O'Neill, Initiative for Inclusive Security

Daniel Opande, former force commander for the UN missions to Liberia (UNMIL) and Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL)

Alma Pérez, Inclusive Security Initiative of the Organization of the American States (OAS)

Barbara Quinn, RSCJ, Center for Christian Spirituality, University of San Diego

Elisabeth Rehn, former Minister of Defense of Finland

Irene Santiago, senior advisor, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (PAPP)

Jolynn Shoemaker, Women in International Security

Shobha Shrestha, Peace and Governance Foundation of South Asia Partnerships (SAP–Nepal)

Stephen Standifird, University of San Diego

Victoria Stanski, Initiative for Inclusive Security

Michael Szporluk, Mercy Corps

Karma Lekshe Tsomo, University of San Diego

Kristin Valasek, UN-INSTRAW

Erica Williams, Institute for Women's Policy Research

Brief Speaker Bios

Dee Aker, Ph.D., is the interim director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice (IPJ) and director of three international IPJ projects: Nepal Project, Women PeaceMakers Program, and WorldLink. Academic posts have included the presidency of the University for Humanistic Studies and campus director of United States International University-Africa. Aker was an international columnist for the Women's Times in San Diego and producer/host for the KUSI-TV San Diego television program WOMEN for six years where she documented the oral histories of two hundred and fifty women working in politics, peacemaking efforts, and grassroots projects.

Elahe Amani is a gender, peace and social justice activist.  Amani has also taught in the Women Studies at the California State University (CSU), Long Beach and Fullerton.  Currently, Amani is the chair of the Coalition of Women from Asia and the Middle East, serves on the Board of Women Intercultural Network, is an Orange County Representative of the California Women’s Agenda (CAWA) and advisory for the certificate program of DV at CSU Fullerton and on the Advisory Board of the Women Center at CSU, Long Beach.  During the World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, Amani presented her paper entitled, “Women’s Human Rights and Islam.”  Amani was a member of the Women Intercultural U.S. Delegation to Afghanistan.

Medea Benjamin, founding director of Global Exchange, has struggled for social justice and human rights in Asia, the Americas, and Africa for over 20 years. Benjamin also co-founded Code Pink, a women's peace group which has been organizing creative actions against the war and occupation of Iraq.

Amy Caiazza, director for Democracy and Society Programs at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, focuses on women’s political participation and leadership and, most recently, on religious women and activism. She has published several books and journal articles, including Mothers and Soldiers: Gender, Citizenship, and Civil Society in Contemporary Russia (Routledge, 2002).  She is a frequent media guest expert.

Carol Cohn, executive director, Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights and senior research scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.  Her recent research focused on mainstreaming gender into peace and security organizations, as well as feminist ethical perspectives on weapons of mass destruction.

Anja H. Ebnöther is assistant director and head of special programs at the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). She leads the Women and Children in an Insecure World project. Ebnöther chairs a Working Group on Security Sector Reform in the Partnership for Peace (PfP) Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes.

Katherine Ferrey, born in Nicaragua, has worked with the Communications Association U.S. Outreach of the World Bank External Affairs for the past three years, and has entered recently into the area of student outreach.  She has written comments on the publication, “ A parliamentarian’s guide to the World Bank” (World Bank, 2004).  Prior to joining the Bank, she helped organize the Central American presidential summit to establish the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor and has worked with permanently disabled demobilized Sandinista and Contra soldiers in Nicaragua.

Ronne Froman became San Diego’s first chief operating officer in January 2006. Previously, Froman served as chief executive officer of the American Red Cross of San Diego and Imperial Counties since 2003. Before joining the American Red Cross, Froman served as chief of business operations for the San Diego Unified School District. Froman is a retired Navy Rear Admiral and the former "Navy Mayor of San Diego".

Anne Marie Goetz, chief advisor of Governance, Peace, and Security for the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), formerly was professor of political science at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, researching women and social change. Goetz has co-authored a number of books on gender and politics in developing countries, including Reinventing Accountability: Making Democracy Work for Human Development (2005) and No Shortcuts to Power: African Women in Politics and Policy-Making (2003).

Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, regional program director for UNIFEM in East Africa, is playing a central role in current peace efforts in Sudan and Darfur. She has worked extensively in Northern Uganda, supporting women’s engagement in peace talks there, and was also involved in Somalia’s “Sixth Clan” initiative, the coming together of the women from different traditional clans to form a women’s clan and get a seat at the all male peace talks.

Gitti Hentschel is the executive director of the Feminist Institute Heinrich Boell Foundation.  She is an executive board member of a women’s refugee organization in Berlin, and a member of the steering committee of the German Women’s Security Council.  Hentschel has worked as a free-lance journalist, co-editor of the weekly newspaper Freitag, and lecturer at the Technical and Humboldt Universities in Berlin.

Barbara Kasoff is the president and co-founder of GrassRoots Impact, Inc. a public policy strategies firm whose mission is to connect corporate America and political leaders to small business owners, including women-owned businesses, minorities, and women in business. Kasoff is also the chief operating officer and co-founder of Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), Inc., a non-profit, public policy advocacy organization advocating for and on behalf of women in business. WIPP’s mission is to strengthen business women’s sphere of influence in the legislative process of our nation, create economic opportunities for them, and build bridges and alliances to other small business organizations.

Liisa Kiianlinna is an assistant judge at the Kuopio Administrative Court, Finland. She is the vice-president of Fédération Internationale des Femmes des Carrières Juridiques (FIFCJ) (Women in Legal Careers), former president of Women Lawyers of Finland and board member of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women. As a former board member of UNIFEM-Finland, Kiianlinna presented on Human Rights for Women Ad Hoc Taskforce for the 2005 Commission of the Status of Women (CSW) at the UN. Previously, Kiianlinna has served as a board member and chairperson of juridical committee of the European Union of Women EUW for six years.

Suzanne Kindervatter, Ph.D., is director of gender and diversity at InterAction. Since 1994, she has led InterAction’s work in expanding the capacity of InterAction members to integrate a gender perspective into their operations and programs and in promoting gender equity in donor and UN agencies. Since 2003, she also has been responsible for InterAction’s Diversity Initiative, which supports members in increasing the representation of women and people of color on their staffs and boards and in adopting inclusive organizational policies and practices. Over the past 25 years, she has worked in 20 countries, in the areas of: education, small enterprise development, leadership training, evaluation, organizational capacity building, and gender and development.

Ron Kirkemo, Ph.D., is a professor of political science at Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, CA.  His academic research and writing addresses the relationship between Christian faith and political policy. Dr. Kirkemo has written three books: An Introduction to International Law, which surveys the law of the world community; Between the Eagle and the Dove: The Christian and American Foreign Policy (InterVarsity Press); and, Promise and Destiny, which explores the history of Point Loma Nazarene University.

Comfort Lamptey, gender advisor to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) at the United Nations, has worked with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and with UNIFEM, advising on support to women in conflict situations.  Prior to joining the United Nations, Lamptey worked with International Alert.

James Kok is the Commissioner of Southern Sudan’s Peace Commission.  He has been an advocate for women’s participation in peace processes within Southern Sudan since 2000, and assisted in the creation of a gender peace desk within Southern Sudan’s Peace Commission.  Kok has been a member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) for 22 years.  He has been the head of the SPLM Peace Desk for reconciling people within Southern Sudan since 2001.  Kok was intricately involved with the peace negotiations between the SPLA/M and the government of Sudan from 2002-2005.

Sarah Martin, an advocate with Refugees International, has conducted missions throughout Africa to promote greater inclusion of gender issues into refugee operations. She authored the report “Must Boys Be Boys? Ending Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN Peacekeepers.” Currently she has been working in Lebanon and Syria.

Jensine Larsen founded World Pulse Magazine, a media source broadcasts the thriving but neglected voices of women and youth around the world, in 2003. Previously she worked as a freelance journalist reporting on indigenous movements and ethnic cleansing in South America and Southeast Asia.

Miria Matembe, former Minster of Ethics and Integrity of Uganda, co-authored Uganda’s affirmative action constitution 1991-93 as a member of Uganda’s Constitution Commission.  She is the author of Gender, Politics and Constitution Making in Uganda and served two terms in Parliament. She has served on the Pan-African Parliament and is the co-founder and former chair of Action for Development, an NGO that prepared men and women for a constituent assembly.

Richard E. (Rick) Matland, professor and Helen Houlihan Rigali Chair in Political Science at Loyola University in Chicago, has authored books, and numerous chapters and articles on women and political participation, including Women’s Access to Political Power in Post-Communist Europe (2003), “Quotas: Frequency and Effectiveness” in Gender Quotas: a Key to Equality? (2006) ; “Gender Quotas and Legislative Recruitment: A Comparative Survey” in The Implementation of Quotas: Arab Experiences (2005).

Michael Nagler, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at University of California–Berkeley, where he founded and still teaches nonviolence and other courses in the Peace and Conflict Studies Program. He co-directed the first Spiritual Progressives Conference in Berkeley in July 2005 with Rabbi Michael Lerner and is a frequent speaker on nonviolence and spirituality. Nagler’s most recent books are The Search for a Nonviolent Future (American Book Award, 2002) and Our Spiritual Crisis. He has been twice nominated for the Jamnalal Bajaj award for Gandhian work outside India.

Joyce Neu, Ph.D., executive director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice, is senior fellow at the U.S. Institute for Peace for the academic year 2006-2007.  Her research will focus on the impact of International Criminal Court interventions on conflict resolution and sustainable peace.  From 1992 to 2004, Neu has conducted conflict assessments in Albania, Georgia, Latvia, Macedonia, Madagascar, and Moldova and has helped facilitate discussions between parties in conflict in Bosnia, Congo-Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Mali, Sudan, and Uganda.  During her years at The Carter Center, Neu worked on the Bosnian ceasefire and on restoring Sudan–Uganda bilateral relations.

Rebecca Okwaci is the secretary general of Women Action for Development (WAD).  In 1995, Okwaci co-led the Sudanese delegation to Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China.  She facilitated a dialogue within various groups of political, religious, and ethnic backgrounds for which she was recognized by international institutions and governments, and culminated in the foundation of Sudanese Women’s Empowerment for Peace (SuWEP). As an Executive Producer at the Sudan Radio Service, Okwaci produces programs targeting women, such as “Our Voices” and “Women’s Corner,” and contributes to programs educating citizens on the Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005, ending the twenty-year civil war.  She is also a founding member of Sudanese Women’s Association in Nairobi (SWAN) and Sudanese Women’s Voice for Peace (SWVP), the first grassroots peace organization established by Sudanese women living in exile in Kenya, and co-led the Sudanese women’s delegation to The Hague Appeal for Peace in 1999.  With SWVP, Okwaci carried out the first peacebuilding and conflict resolution programs and trainings in the Shilluk Kingdom in Mid-West Upper Nile in southern Sudan. 

Jacqueline O'Neill is a policy associate at the Initiative for Inclusive Security in Washington, DC. She focuses on enhancing women's participation in conflict resolution throughout Sudan as well as on working with U.S., Canadian, and other military and civilian police organizations to engage constructively with local women leaders. Prior to joining the Initiative, O'Neill worked in the Human Rights Unit at the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), as well as at the Institute of Gender and Development at Sudan's Ahfad University for women. She served as a policy advisor to Canada's Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific and has worked as a crisis communications and management consultant in the private sector. O'Neill also helped found an effort to bring together military, humanitarian, and human rights communities to discuss strategic military uses of child soldiers and remains involved in its implementation. She has a Bachelors of Commerce from the University of Alberta and a Masters in Public Policy focused on international security and political economy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Daniel Opande has served as force commander for the UN missions to Liberia (UNMIL) and Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), and as deputy force commander to the UN Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG). He was the chief military observer to the first UN Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL), and was involved in peace negotiations in Mozambique from 1990-1993. More recently, Opande was involved in the peace processes in Sudan and has been invited to participate in the Somalia Security Sector Reform (SSR) initiative.

Alma Pérez serves a consultant to the Inclusive Security Initiative and the Organization of the American States.  She designs and delivers trainings throughout the hemisphere to build bridges between government, civil society, and women's organizations and to promote UN Security Council Resolution 1325.  Pérez is a member of the faculty of finance, government, and international relations at Universidad Externado de Colombia.

Barbara Quinn, RSCJ, is the director of the Center for Christian Spirituality at the University of San Diego. The Center, rooted in Christian spirituality, respects the diversity of beliefs and cultures, and focuses on personal enrichment, professional and academic life, and social justice. These goals are realized through academic courses; programs designed for professional constituencies including business, law, social work, and spiritual direction; workshops for personal enrichment; and collaboration with groups addressing social justice concerns. The Center emphasizes dialogue as an essential way to discover and share the transcendent values of life in order that they may be placed at the service of the community. Quinn co-teaches a course on business leadership and spirituality in which MBA students and local business leaders to explore the relationship between business and spirituality with a focus on the challenges of leadership, including current theory and practice in business and spirituality.

Elisabeth Rehn, the first woman to hold that post of Minister of Defense of Finland, compiled an extensive report, Women, War, and Peace (UNIFEM, 2002), along with Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.  She has served as Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Rehn is recipient of the 2006 Tombouctou Award from Femmes Africa Solidarité for her contributions to the African women’s peace movement.

Irene Santiago is a senior adviser to the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (PAPP), one of two women on the panel, negotiating with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao, the Philippines.  She was a nominee of the 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.  Santiago has been a gender advocate for the past thirty years and has consulted for the World Bank and numerous international institutions, organizations, and governments.  Santiago was the executive director of the NGO Forum on Women which was organized in parallel with the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

Jolynn Shoemaker is the Executive Director of Women in International Security (WIIS).  She has worked for the U.S. Department of State on human rights, the U.S. Department of Defense as a lawyer and a policy analyst, and on international law and policy issues for The Initiative for Inclusive Security.  Shoemaker has a J.D. and M.A. from Georgetown University.  She has published on women and armed conflict, legal reform in post-conflict situations, and human rights.  Shoemaker is a member of the New York Bar.

Shobha Shrestha works under the Peace and Governance Foundation of South Asia Partnerships (SAP–Nepal) as a peace and security officer and is currently the member-secretary of South Asia Small Arms Network–Nepal. She has made appreciable contributions in the areas of gender, advocacy, peace, and governance. Shrestha is a trainer of conflict resolution, peacebuilding and network management at grassroots and national levels, and is carrying out research at Small Arms Monitor–Nepal. Shrestha employs her expertise to focus on human security and is committed to the control of small arms and to peacebuilding.

Stephen Standifird, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Management at University of San Diego. Prior to joining USD, he taught at the Western Washington University, was a visiting lecturer at the Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management in Warsaw, Poland and worked in a variety of project related areas for Amoco Chemical Company. His current research interests include international institutional influences and organizational reputation. He has been widely published and currently serves on the editorial boards of Corporate Reputation Review and the Journal of Management Inquiry.  He has served on a number of not-for-profit boards and currently serves as a board President for The Crime Victims Fun, a not-for-profit that provides financial support to victims of crimes with a special emphasis on victims of domestic violence.

Victoria Stanski is the manager of network strategy and advocacy for the Women Waging Peace global network, part of the Initiative for Inclusive Security, a program of Hunt Alternatives Fund in Washington, DC. As the primary liaison for over four hundred women peacebuilders in forty conflict and postconflict countries, she has organized advocacy efforts to promote the full participation of all stakeholders, especially women, in peace processes. In 2005, Stanski worked at the U.S. Institute of Peace on "Envisioning Iraq's Future: Developing an Alternative View", a research project focused on analyzing the new, emerging leaders in Iraq and exploring their views and attitudes toward key policy issues. Previously, Stanski served as an AmeriCorps volunteer at Peace Games, a national peace education and violence prevention program for elementary and high school students in Boston, MA. She was awarded the Harold Isaac's Award for "Lynchpin for Democracy: The Critical Role of Civil Society in Iraq" which was published in The Third World Studies Journal (Fall 2005). Stanski was a contributing editor for the peace and conflict resolution section of 365 Ways to Change the World (Myriad Editions, 2005; Penguin Books, 2006). Stanski earned a Masters in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University's School for International Service in Washington, DC, and a Bachelors in Cultural Anthropology and African Studies from Smith College.

Michael Szporluk is Senior Program Officer at Mercy Corps and works on the Training, Advocacy and Networking program, which operates in Mongolia and Guatemala. He has worked in Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia for local and international organizations on a range of development and dialogue projects and worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia.  Szporluk has a Master in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Karma Lekshe Tsomo, Ph.D., is a professor of theology at the University of San Diego.  Her primary academic interests include women in Buddhism, Buddhism and bioethics, religion and cultural change, and Buddhism in the United States. Tsomo’s doctoral research focused on death and identity in China and Tibet. In addition to her academic work, she is actively involved in interfaith dialogue and in grassroots initiatives for the empowerment of women. She is president of Sakyadhita: International Association of Buddhist Women and director of Jamyang Foundation, an initiative to provide educational opportunities for women in the Indian Himalayas and Bangladesh.

Kristin Valasek is an independent consultant and previously worked with the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) in order to initiate its work on gender, peace, and security issues. Valasek also worked as a consultant with the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs focusing on projects addressing women and gender. She received her Masters in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford after writing her thesis on the topic of gender and small arms and light weapons. Her prior academic background is in women's studies and peace studies. Valasek is Swedish and American, a certified mediator and has worked with issues of domestic violence, sexual assault, and refugee support at the grassroots level.

Erica Williams works as a policy analyst at the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR). She earned her Masters in International Policy at the Monterey Institute for International Studies, with a Certificate in Gender and Development, and double majored in Sociology and Spanish Studies as an undergraduate at Santa Clara University. While at IWPR, Williams has conducted interviews and coordinated the activities of the Working Group on Women's Public Vision for the Institute's project on Politics, Religion, and Women's Public Vision. She has co-authored a number of reports related to IWPR's Status of Women in the States project and IWPR's briefing paper series on women in the Gulf Coast. Williams also coordinates IWPR's monthly Women and Social Security Alert and is co-chair of the Domestic Priorities Task Force of the National Council of Women's Organizations.

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For more information or questions about the conference, please contact WPMconference@sandiego.edu.