GlobeLecture #9 with Cheryl Hendricks
GlobeLecture #9 – Implementing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Africa: the need for a reset
GlobeLecture is a series of lectures held several times a semester in which outstanding researchers discuss global change, transnational interdependencies and regional transformations. It is organised by the Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics in cooperation with partners inside and outside Leipzig University. This time we'll host Professor Cheryl Hendricks who will talk about "Implementing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Africa: the need for a reset".
The need to reset Peace and Security approaches globally, and in Africa, is widely articulated and finds expression in the UN’s New Agenda for Peace and its Pact for the Future. It has also been central to the deliberations of the past two Retreats of Special Representatives, Envoys and Ambassadors of the African Union on Peace, Security and Stability in Africa. Although Women Peace and Security (WPS) is seen as a key part of the new approaches to peace and security, the ways in which it has been discussed and included is rather limiting. Reference is usually made to ensuring the acceleration of its implementation with little critical reflection of the strengths and limitations of its conceptualisation, strategies, and/or its overall relationship to the main peace and security agenda. This discussion will therefore provide an overview of the evolution of the WPS agenda, especially in Africa, and highlight its strengths and challenges, as well as make the case for a reset of the agenda in relation to the shifting peace and security contexts.
Professor Cheryl Hendricks is the Executive Director of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and currently fellow with the Research Centre Global Dynamic's ANCIP-Project. Prior to this, she was the Executive Director of the Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA), within the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). She was also a Professor and Head of Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) South Africa, from April 2013 to June 2018. She also previously worked at the Institute for Security Studies first as program head for the Southern Africa Human Security Programme and then as senior research fellow in the Conflict Management and Peacebuilding Division. She holds a PhD in Government and International Relations from the University of South Carolina and a Masters in Southern African studies from the University of York, England. Her substantive knowledge areas include conflict management (conflict prevention, peace-making, peacekeeping and peacebuilding); women, peace and security; African Politics, South African Foreign Policy, Regional Security Architectures. She has published widely on these topics and engages a range of policymakers, academics, researchers and civil society on these issues.
The GlobeLecture will be moderated by Prof. Dr. Ulf Engel. It is organized in cooperation with the SFB 1199 “Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition” and the African non-military conflict intervention practices (ANCIP)-project.