Day 12 - Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda and Swanee Hunt

After serving as the Regional Director for thirteen countries in Eastern and the Horn of Africa for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda took on her present role as the General Secretary for the World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). Gumbonzvanda has worked to advance gender equity in peace processes in numerous African countries experiencing conflict, including Sudan.  She assumed a lead role in the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region that led to the adoption of the Protocol on Sexual and Gender Based Violence, and she helped develop the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on Women’s Rights in Africa. As a trained human rights lawyer and native of Zimbabwe with extensive experience in conflict resolution and mediation, Gumbonzvanda has stated that “a new Sudan, a Sudan without war, needs women as leaders and as full and equal citizens. Women are central to the enormous tasks ahead and can accelerate the building of peace, security and prosperity.”

As a delegate at the second Sudanese Women’s Forum, Gumbonzvanda stressed the need for full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which would ensure that Darfuri women are included in peace negotiations. At the forum, she explained “this is to show the world that the women of Darfur are not victims, but part of the process upon which peace shall be built. It is a positive story of Darfur women seeking to find a lasting peace even though they have been deeply affected by the war.” Ms. Gumbonzvanda recently founded a new women’s rights and empowerment organization, the Rozaria Memorial Trust (RMT).  Widely recognized for her work advancing women’s rights, she was awarded lifetime membership to the Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organization and received the 2008 Soromundi (Sisters of the World) Award for her work to highlight violations of the human rights of women and girls in conflict regions around the world.

Swanee Hunt became involved in Sudanese peace negotiations through a far different path. With a background serving in the Colorado state government and working with the Presbyterian Church, Hunt was appointed the U.S. Ambassador to Austria, where she served from 1993-97. After working to broker peace in the neighboring Balkan states while holding this post, Hunt reflected on this experience in a book titled This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace.

After serving as the Founding Director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School at Harvard University, Hunt now chairs the Institute for Inclusive Security.  This Washington-based organization advocates for the full inclusion of women in peace processes and conducts research on and trainings in best practices for advancing this goal. The Institute has done extensive work in Sudan to lay groundwork for an inclusive Darfur peace process, convene meetings of Darfuri women to discuss and articulate their common goals, share their priorities with international actors, and support preparations for national elections. Hunt has spent her career fighting for women to be heard in conflict zones, and has helped create opportunities for Darfuri women to strengthen and unify their voices and advance their priorities for a peaceful Sudan.

In recognition of their tremendous contributions to building peace in Sudan, we are proud to honor Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda and Swanee Hunt, the mediators, as among our 16 Leaders

Read the statement that Donald Steinberg, Deputy President for Policy for the International Crisis Group, submitted to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee this fall. In his testimony, he discusses his experience supporting peace negotiations to end the civil war in Angola, while serving as President Clinton’s advisor for Africa in 1994. He states that “When the Lusaka Protocol was signed, I boasted that not a single provision in the agreement discriminated against women. ‘The agreement is gender-neutral,’ I said in a speech. It took me only a few weeks after my arrival in Luanda to realize that a peace agreement that calls itself 'gender-neutral' is, by definition, discriminatory against women.” He goes on to discuss how the peace agreement did not include provisions to address sexual violence, human trafficking, abuses by government and rebel security forces, reproductive health care and girls’ education – and quickly fell apart. Steinberg, eloquently and movingly, builds his case for inclusive peace processes and the mobilization of resources for survivors of sexual violence in conflict areas like Sudan.