Women and Peacebuilding in Uganda

Citation:

Ball, Jennifer. 2019. “Women and Peacebuilding in Uganda.” In Women, Development and Peacebuilding in Africa: Stories from Uganda, 3–29. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Author: Jennifer Ball

Abstract:

Peacebuilding is typically viewed in international arenas as processes and activities engaged in during periods of post-conflict reconstruction, following on the heels of peacemaking and peacekeeping. The peacebuilders are often outsiders, and usually Westerners. This chapter upends those traditional notions, offering a more holistic view of peacebuilding, and one in which local women are key players. The focus is not merely on reconstruction, but also on the prevention and resolution of violence and conflict, by ensuring the socioeconomic and political conditions in which people’s rights and basic human needs can be met. This chapter looks at the roles of women in peacebuilding, and then at women peacebuilders in the Ugandan context. It notes ways in which Ugandan women at the grassroots have played and continue to play significant and often unheralded roles in fraught situations.

Keywords: peacebuilding, Ugandan women, Mazurana, violent conflict, grassroots

Topics: Class, Conflict, Gender, Women, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Violence Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Uganda

Year: 2019