United Nations - International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN)

Women Peacebuilders Share Priorities for the UN’s New Agenda for Peace

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Lauren Mellows

On Wednesday 15 February guests from the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (UNDPPA), UN Office of Counterterrorism (UNOCT) and UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) joined the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) and women peacebuilders in the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL) for a special consultation on the UN Secretary-General’s “New Agenda for Peace”.

To Address Extremisms In The New Decade, Do What The Women Say

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Lauren Mellows

ICAN’s Senior Program Officer, Rosalie Fransen provides a gendered analysis of emerging trends and threats in the CT and P/CVE landscape.

Sign-On: Action Points to Guarantee the Rights, Safety and Health of Women and Girls in Afghanistan

Posted on October 15, 2021 by Lauren Mellows

The international community needs to take urgent action to ensure Afghan women and girls across all ethnic and religious communities, in urban and rural areas, feel safe and have equal rights and opportunities to a life of dignity, peace, safety and justice.

To achieve this overarching goal, and to ensure that there is no regression in the context of the impending humanitarian crisis, we have stated four key outcomes and offered specific actions by international actors and specific actions by the Taliban.

Humanitarian Response to Afghanistan Must Not Do Harm

Posted on September 29, 2021 by Lauren Mellows

Given the gendered segregation of society that the Taliban has already instigated, the delivery of aid to women and girls will be even more highly dependent on female Afghan aid workers and local women-led civil society organizations (CSOs). Such organizations have traditionally been the key conduits to reaching the most needy and marginalized sectors of society. They are more essential now.

We have offered 10 practical steps that the UN and other international humanitarian actors can take in designing and implementing their humanitarian response.

ICAN Celebrates International Day of UN Peacekeepers with 10 Steps to Increase Women’s Participation in Peacekeeping

Posted on May 28, 2021 by Lauren Mellows

As we celebrate the International Day of UN Peacekeepers 2021 ICAN emphasize the importance of effective recruitment and systematic and sustained inclusion of women peacekeepers.

Our Better Peace Initiative (BPI) resource ‘10 Steps to Increase Women’s Participation in Peacekeeping and Reduce Sexual Exploitation and Abuse’ provides concrete recommendations from women-led civil society to improve community security and eradicate Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) from peacekeeping missions through effective recruitment and deployment of women. Available in English and French.

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini’s Remarks at the UN’s 2020 Virtual Counter-Terrorism Week

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Lauren Mellows

“Stop the rhetoric on promising rights, development and gender equality, and deliver on that promise. If your promises stay empty, you lose the trust of the people,” warned ICAN’s Founder and CEO, Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, MBE, during a high level session of the UN’s 7th Biannual Review of the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy.

Ms. Anderlini spoke alongside Professor Ni Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN’s Special Rapporteur Ambassador Pascale Baeriswyl, Switzerland’s Permanent Representative to the UN and Ambassador Nicolas de Rivière, Permanent Representative of France to the UN in a session on “Protecting and promoting Human Rights as a cornerstone of building resilience against terrorism”.

Read Ms. Anderlini’s full speech.

Two Sides of the Same Coin? Operationalizing Linkages Between the SDG 16 and PVE Agendas

Posted on August 22, 2019 by Lauren Mellows

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.