Women's Peacebuilding Leadership
The roles of women and impacts on women are a prominent part of all of CPN's focus areas. For example: peace processes are more effective when women are meaningfully engaged stakeholders; the adverse health and economic impacts of extractive industries disporpportiatiely affect women; women are some of the most prominent defenders of human and environmental rights and face additional threats and violence in those roles because they are women; and women's unqiue expereinces of victimhood and roles as community leaders are frequently neglected in transitional justice processes. But starting in 2023, CPN took on women's peacebuilding leadership as its own topic of engagement in Catholic peacebuilding. This new initiative is still taking shape, and activities so far have included:
- A special issue of the Journal of Moral Theology on the twenty-fifth anniversary of UNSCR 1325, the UN's Women, Peace, and Security Agenda (forthcoming in 2026).
- The fourth Preparing the Future Research Fellowship, co-sponsored by CPN, Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and Notre Dame Rome, focused on women and peacebuilding for Caritas Internationais. This resulted in a publication by fellow Flora Giquel in the Journal of Social Encounters, "Enhancing Peacebuilding for Integral Human Development: Caritas Good Practices and Lessons Learnt."
- A planning retreat from May 31-June 2, 2024 in Plymouth, Michigan, for CPN's Women's Peacebuilding Leadership Working Group.