future now”

organizations need to step up their support to women’s organization
and training programmes for women who are
active in civil society or politics.
Strict visa regulations prohibiting Syrian women activists
from traveling is a severe obstacle in the way of these
women’s participation in regional and international peacebuilding
efforts and consultation processes. An inclusive
approach requires the mobility of Syrian women activists.
Women are to a large extent absent from holding decisionmaking
positions within local councils in Syria. The inclusion
of women in the local councils is not only important
to strengthen their political leadership, but also to secure
an effective response plan to their needs during armed
conflict as well as to guarantee means for their protection.
Recommendations to
the Syrian oppositions’ political bodies
• Include women in your political bodies/committees/
working groups etcetera and promote women for positions
in decision-making bodies, such as local councils.
• Make sure structures are in place within different opposition
parties for women to be able to organize and mobilize
on the local, regional, and international levels.
• Promote local peace initiatives and highlight the role of
women in success stories.
Recommendations to
the international community
• Always invite women to the negotiation table.
• Impose a quota of minimum 30 percent representation
of women in all negotiation parties delegations.
• Support the establishment of a consultative body to
the peace process consisting of civil society actors
including women.
• Provide training opportunities for women in political
leadership and negotiation skills, in advance of
negotiations.
• Seek to include more women activists who live and
work inside Syria when supporting or organizing
events and activities abroad, and exert pressure on
the Syrian regime to guarantee their safety upon
returning.
• Promote more practical visa procedures to enable civil
society to participate in processes related to Syria.
• Ensure that gender equality experts are included in
the mediation teams.
Recommendations to
Syrian women’s groups
• Support politically active women and encourage
women to engage in politics.
• Communicate your demands and those of the women
you work with, to politically active women.
2. Strengthen Syrian women’s rights groups and support their peace work
Many of the women’s groups in Syria have emerged during
the last few years in the exceptional circumstances of
violent conflict. They lack basic organizational skills, work
under constant security threats, and battle financial limitations.
The international community’s financial support
is crucial to strengthen women’s organizations in Syria
and pave the way for their sustainable and effective role in
the future. Training and technical support are necessary,
as well as facilitating meetings with women’s organizations
with experience from other armed conflicts, to share
knowledge, expertise and lessons learned.
A major impediment today is the difficulties for women’s
groups to access funding, for example EU funds. Funding is
also often short-termed, which means that many women’s
groups have to spend a lot of time chasing financial support
and writing reports rather than working with strategic
planning and implementation. Most donors also fund
specific projects or activities, which makes it difficult for
women’s groups to obtain core funding to cover staff costs
and maintain themselves as institutions. The sustainably
of the organizations must become a priority among donors.
In addition, the funding actors must begin to consider the
limitations for Syrian organizations to register, especially
in neighbouring countries. Donor restrictions on registration
need to meet the circumstances under which Syrian
civil society is working and enable its access to funding.
Another problem is that neighbouring countries obstruct
cross-border activities organized by Syrian civil society organizations,
which require participants to travel in and
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Recommendations to
the international community
• Provide technical and financial support, including
long-term core support, to Syrian women’s groups.
• Modify funding procedures, like those of the EU,
to make it easier for emerging local groups to access
financial support.
• In political dialogue, push for an enabling legal
environment to allow Syrian civil society inside Syria
and the neighbouring countries to register and work
freely.
• Encourage neighbouring countries, where much
capacity-building training and many exchange meetings
are taking place, to facilitate the activists’ trips
through, for example, creating safe passages for them
to cross borders and acknowledging letters of invitation
to events as reasons for travel/entrance.
• Increase support for income-generating activities and
education for women and girls to build their agency,
skills, dignity and long-term resilience.
• Focus on education for refugee children in neighbouring
countries by encouraging and supporting host
countries to enrol more children in their schools and
supporting informal educational initiatives by civil
society activists.
• Facilitate exchanges of lessons learned between
women’s groups in conflict settings.
• Increase support, including core funding to local
initiatives, to enable the presence of alternative
media which promotes non-violent attitudes and
practices as well as gender equality.