The Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL) brings together existing women rights and peace practitioners, organizations, and networks actively engaged in preventing extremism and promoting peace, rights and pluralism, to enable their systematic and strategic collaboration.
‘Wasl’ means to ‘connect’ in Arabic, Urdu and Persian.
Our Core Values
- Nonviolence and active support of positive inclusive peace;
- Pluralism, social cohesion, equality, and non-discrimination;
- Social, political, and economic justice;
- Adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
- Transforming gendered power relations to realize equality and rights;
- Amplifying community voices and building a progressive majority;
- Building on the history and legacy of women’s activism and leadership;
- Mutual empowerment, support, and respect for others’ experiences and avoiding duplication of work.
“Women’s rights activists are the longest-standing socially-rooted, transnational groups mobilizing for peace, countering rising extremism, and providing an alternative vision for the future.”
— WASL founding statement
Our Approach
We cultivate vertical, horizontal and diagonal connections
Vertical Connections
- Facilitate access for national and grassroots women-led organizations to engage substantively in the international countering violent extremism (CVE) debate by collating their perspectives on critical issues (e.g. security, economics, education) and publishing policy papers. This includes information sharing and analyses from the ground to increase knowledge of the gender dimensions of violent extremism with a focus on solutions to root causes and contributions to preventative action.
- Link women’s networks, practitioners, and organizations more effectively to governmental processes, enabling them to share lessons learned and shape state and multilateral policies and programs based on ground realities and needs.
- Develop shared, conceptually-sound solutions to challenges the security-oriented approaches and narratives of existing CVE policies and programs.
- Avoid duplication of efforts and provide a means of coordination and mutual development and support based on a division of labor and core strengths among INGOs, government, and multilateral organizations.
Horizontal Connections
- Provide opportunities to enable the sharing of strategies and lessons learned across countries between grassroots, national civil society actors, and regional and international activists/organizations facing similar manifestations of extremism, including “know-how” and good practices for scaling up successful and promising initiatives.
- Ensure allocation of resources to support innovative solutions locally and internationally in a range of spheres — notably practical community-based work, messaging and communications, production of knowledge, etc.
- Connect existing women-led organizations and resource persons working on extremism and promoting peace to deepen solidarity and strengthen their impact.
- Initiate country-focused public surveys and other efforts to tap into the aspirations of potentially vulnerable populations and use that data to articulate a coherent and realistic alternative vision with attention to improvements in education, justice, economic, and other human security policies.
Diagonal Connections
- Include and reach out to other sectors – notably arts and culture, journalism, religious communities, the private sector, and governmental agencies to echo and amplify the voices and perspectives emerging from women’s organizations.
- Draw on each sector and organization’s unique competencies to ensure innovative mass outreach and build wider public participation in disseminating the vision, values, and messages of WASL members.
Publications
Invisible Women: Gendered Dimensions of Return, Rehabilitation and Reintegration from Violent Extremism
This report contributes a gendered analysis of approaches to the disengagement, rehabilitation and reintegration of women and girls associated with violent extremism. It highlights the gaps in current policies and practice, as well as the solutions that are emerging in part from the experiences and innovations of women-led civil society initiatives. The report concludes with practical recommendations for policymakers and programming guidance for practitioners.
10 Steps to Strengthening Rehabilitation and Reintegration Efforts for Terrorism Offenders, Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters, and Victims of Violent Extremism
Managing the return of the many individuals who have traveled to conflict zones and the growing number defecting from terrorist groups is a priority for many countries. Here are ten steps to ensure effective R & R
10 Steps to Designing and Implementing Inclusive National Action Plans to Prevent Violent Extremism
A GSX document offering steps to improve PVE practice through National Action Plans.
Recommendations on Donor Engagement With Civil Society on Preventing Violent Extremism
A GSX document outlining recommendations from civil society to donors that fund or are interested in funding preventing violent extremism (PVE) programming domestically and/or through development or other foreign assistance.
Bringing Peace to Yemen by Having Women at the Table
What the U.S. Must Do and Why It Matters A Policy Brief in the 2016-17 U.S. Civil Society Working Group on Women, Peace and Security Policy Brief Series by Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, Rasha Jarhum, Rana Allam, and Devin Cowick. As a critical member of the coalition...
From the Ground Up – The Nexus of Economic Policy, Gender and Violent Extremism
A preliminary dialogue on the gap between economic policy intentions and realities on the ground.
Preventing Violent Extremism, Protecting Rights and Community Policing
Why Civil Society and Security Sector Partnerships Matter. Analyzing the impact of security interventions in contributing to and mitigating extremist violence.
Education, Identity and Rising Extremism
From Preventing Violent Extremism to Promoting Peace, Resilience, Equal Rights and Pluralism (PREP).
Analysis: National Action Plans on Preventing Violent Extremism
A gendered content analysis of nine NAPs, analyzing whether and how specific themes and target groups were discussed, including education, media, civil society, gender/ women, and human rights.
10 Steps Governments Can Take to Support the Critical Role of Civil Society in Preventing Violent Extremism
Evidence demonstrates that efforts by governments and multilateral actors, particularly security-focused initiatives, are not sufficient to prevent violent extremism. Governments and multilateral institutions need to work more closely with other sectors of society to...
WASL Videos
Why Are Women Peacebuilders at Risk?
Stories of women peacebuilders don’t often make it to the headlines. However, they are part of the longest-standing, socially-rooted transnational groups mobilizing for peace, women’s rights and security, and providing an alternative vision for the future.
We Will Not Let Violence Determine Our Collective Future
Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership partners will meet with Heads of State and Government to launch the Global Solutions Exchange.
Updates
Two Sides of the Same Coin? Operationalizing Linkages Between the SDG 16 and PVE Agendas
On July 15, 2019, the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Prevention Project—Organizing Against Violent Extremism, and the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), convened a day-long expert roundtable on the margins of the UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development.
Why Are Women Peacebuilders at Risk?
Stories of women peacebuilders don’t often make it to the headlines. However, they are part of the longest-standing, socially-rooted transnational groups mobilizing for peace, women’s rights and security, and providing an alternative vision for the future.
ICAN & WASL Exchange Experience on the Protection of Peacebuilders at the Caux Forum
Members of the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL) gathered with ICAN who partnered with Initiatives of Change to host the 2019 Caux Forum: Towards an Inclusive Peace. With an emphasis on integrated approaches to prevention, over 100 peacebuilders from around the world gathered in Caux, Switzerland for four days of panel discussions, storytelling, country focused sessions, and thematic workshops.
ICAN and WASL to Discuss Strategies for Protection of Women Peacebuilders in Berlin
ICAN and WASL partner with German Foreign Office and the Center for Feminist Foreign Policy to discuss protection needs and strategies for women peacebuilders.