Activists and Scholars on Security and Peace

How to Build a Caring Feminist Foreign Policy?

Last year the Dutch government announced that it would pursue a Feminist Foreign Policy, which was to be developed in consultation with civil society and knowledge institutions. On 1 and 2 November 2023 the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosts an international conference on ‘Shaping Feminist Foreign Policy’, thereby profiling itself as the latest adopter of a Feminist Foreign Policy. But whose voices and knowledge have actually made it into the Dutch Feminist Foreign Policy? And whose voices and knowledge have been sidelined?

The Netherlands are following other countries who have already had a Feminist Foreign Policy for longer, such as Canada or Mexico. Scholarship has shown that Feminist Foreign Policy has often been limited to promoting gender equality in development and human rights funding. However, broader justice issues that could benefit marginalized communities abroad are not addressed.

In tandem with the official government conference, the Feminist Foreign Policy Academic Platform welcomes an open conversation with civil society leaders and scholars, to discuss how academic research can better support civil society in bringing their knowledge and needs to the table. How can we reimagine peace and security as relations of care rooted in specific contexts and people’s lived realities? How can a Feminist Foreign Policy take seriously the expertise of civil society to address the intersecting root causes of violence and insecurity, and the ways in which it is organized through hierarchies of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and health?

About the speakers

Hanna L. Mühlenhoff is a Senior Lecturer in European Studies at the University of Amsterdam. She is interested in questions of security, militarism and civil society activism in the European Union and Europe more broadly, including in the context of the United Nations’ Women, Peace and Security Agenda. She is elected co-chair of the Council of European Studies Gender and Sexuality Research Network and recently co-edited a special issue on ‘Gender, race and coloniality in European security policies’ for European Security.

Helen Kezie-Nwoha is the Executive Director of the Women’s International Peace Centre, a regional feminist organization that promotes women’s participation in peace building. She is a Member of the Network of African Women Mediators (FEMWISE), African Union ECOSOCC Advisory Group on Women, Peace and Security and Chair of the Gender Is My Agenda Campaign at the African Union. Helen has a Ph.D. in Women and Gender Studies and was recognized in 2021 one of the top 100 women from Global South making change in the field of foreign policy, peacebuilding, law and development with the Gender Security Project.

Wanjiku Mung’ala is a queer feminist with over 20 years of experience in international development, specializing in program design, activism, research, and management. Her work and research interests focus on community organizing around gender justice, sexual and reproductive rights, and LGBTIQ+ activism. Wanjiku currently serves as the Strategy and Impact Lead for gender equality, diversity, and inclusion at the Hivos Foundation. She is also a part-time Ph.D. candidate at the Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research.

Lucy Hall (moderator, she/her) is a researcher and lecturer at PPLE College, University of Amsterdam. Her work considers the intersections of gender, violence and protection in refugee and humanitarian protection.