25 Apr 2023
Rethinking Foreign Policy: Why peace building needs more women
Wars and conflicts have increased globally - with serious consequences for democracy worldwide. Since 2008, according to the Global Peace Index, the peacefulness of the world has declined by two percent, and in 2022 world peace reached its lowest point - marked, among other things, by the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, but also by the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the increase in violent protests.
So how can peace become a reality? How can we overcome a foreign policy that is merely based on military deterrence towards a human-centered policy building on civil society? In the new episode of the Weitergedacht podcast, we want to discuss with Kristina Lunz, Co-Director of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, and our Thinking of Europe Fellow Lisa Glybchenko why a rethinking of foreign and security policy is needed, what role a feminist perspective can play in this, but also how peacebuilding and a peaceful civil society can be strengthened by digitalisation.
The guests:
Kristina Lunz is co-founder and co-director of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP). After a Bachelor's degree in Psychology, she received her first Master's degree MSc Global Governance and Ethics in London and completed a second Master's degree in Diplomacy as a full scholar at Oxford University. After graduating, she worked for the United Nations in Myanmar and for an NGO in Colombia, among others. Kristina has (co-)initiated various activist campaigns and received several awards and fellowships in renowned institutions. She is a member of the Advisory Group of the Goalkeepers Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was named one of the "30 under 30" in Europe and DACH by Forbes in 2019. Her bestseller "The Future of Foreign Policy is Feminist" (Ullstein/Econ Verlag, 2022) has been widely received. Kristina and her work are regularly featured in international media such as Vogue, Spiegel, ZDF or even The Guardian.
Lisa Glybchenko is a Ukrainian peace-builder/entrepreneur, artist and currently a doctoral researcher working in her PhD project “Visual Peacetech: Digital Visual Images as Security-Building Tools” at Tampere University, Finland. In research efforts, Lisa explores digital visuality of peace and security, holistic user-experience design of virtual reality technologies as peacebuilding tools, and the potential of augmented reality technologies for demo-making of peace arrangements. Much of this is based on the work Lisa’s artistic-technological peacebuilding startup Color Up Peace, which now runs a 10-month support program for displaced Ukrainians in Finland and offers a virtual workshops series for war-affected people.
More information on Color Up Peace ones:
https://www.facebook.com/coloruppeace
https://www.instagram.com/coloruppeace/
Weitergedacht - the podcast of the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft. We look forward to exchanging ideas with you. For example, on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. You can listen to all podcasts in the series on Spotify, Soundcloud and Apple Podcasts.
Website: www.alfred-herrhausen-gesellschaft.de
Contact: alfred.herrhausen-gesellschaft@db.com
