In September 2010, the HD Centre brought together forty women from across Asia and the Pacific, in Kathmandu, Nepal, to reflect on the contribution of women to peace processes. Participants discussed how to significantly improve women’s representation in peace negotiations and realise meaningful gender content in peace agreements.

This report summarises the rich discussions which took place during the meeting. These included the difficulties many women experience in getting to the peace table; confusion between gender and women’s “issues”; alternate visions of peace processes; and, frustration with the inconsistent efforts among mediators and their advisers to include and address gender issues in the course of their work. This summary also underlines the ability of women to make allies across political lines and their methods for influencing the formal processes from which they have been excluded.

This meeting was part of the HD Centre’s ‘Women at the Peace Table – Asia Pacific’ project supported by the Australian Agency for International Development and the Open Society Institute.