STRATEGIES FOR PEACE AND RECONCILIATION:

Introduction

Letter from the President

Human Security or Military Security

Afghan Women: Securing a Seat at the Table

The Middle East — Possibilities for Peace?

What Has Happened to the Women of Kosova?

A Glimpse of Global Fund Grantees in Conflict Zones

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Women's Funds Gathers Despite Global Turmoil

Looming Catastrophe in Bangladesh

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Events

Calendar

Impressum

By Indira Jena, Executive Director, Nirnaya Women's Trust, Secunderabad, India

	Nirnaya representatives: (left) Lalita Missal, GFW advisor, and A. Uma Maheshwari welcome participants to the Network meeting.

The third annual meeting of the International Network of Women's Funds took place in Hyderabad, India, from January 16-18, 2002, hosted by the Nirnaya Women's Trust. Closely following the harvest festival celebrated throughout India, the meeting symbolically represented years of harvest of indigenous philanthropic efforts. Held against the backdrop of the September 11th events and growing turmoil between India and Pakistan, the meeting brought together women from every part of the world as testimony to the commitment of local women's funds to support women's peace and justice initiatives.

Representatives attended the meeting from women's funds in 12 countries: Brazil, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, the Netherlands, South Africa, Ukraine and the United States. The women's fund from Chile was unable to attend. During three days of hard work, we filled Hotel Viceroy with color, fragrance and laughter. It reaffirmed our pledge to work towards the fundamental principles to which we are all committed—equality, peace and harmony, with respect for our ethnic, class and gender differences.

Highlights of the meeting included:

• A lively and moving update by the member funds, which outlined their challenges and achievements in 2001.
  
  
• Creating a bold and strategic vision of the international network of women's funds in five years.
  
  
• Developing mechanisms for smooth and effective communication systems through the list serve and newly created network Web site.
  
  
• Discussing mutual exchange programs between funds.
  
  
• Four thematic workshops on fund-raising and communications, institution building, conflict management and grantmaking gave representatives an opportunity to share expertise and skills.

In addition to hearing from network members, reports were made by emerging women's funds in Hong Kong and Germany. Observers from the Ford Foundation, India; the Women's Funding Network, US; Astraea Lesbian Action Foundation, US; and Womankind, UK were invited. Sushma Raman of the Ford Foundation, Delhi, explained that Ford is celebrating 50 years of work in India this year with a grant fund of $50 million for a range of issues, including development of education, arts and culture, peace and social justice, and capacity building. The Ford Foundation has been an active supporter of the women's funds program at the Global Fund.

The African Women's Development Fund, based in Accra, Ghana will be the host of next year's international women's funds meeting. We look forward to another rich and fruitful meeting of women's funds that are developing unique and sustainable models of indigenous philanthropy on every continent.

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