ACCORD in association with the Ugandan Women Situation Room (WSR), a peacebuilding project founded in February 2016 that empowers women to be the leading force for democratic and peaceful elections, conducted a series of three post-election trainings for the Eminent Women of the WSR on 19 May, 26 May, and 02 June 2021.
ACCORD previously conducted mediation trainings with the Eminent Women, during the months of November 2020, December 2020, and early January 2021, in which six sessions took place to strengthen the skills and prepare the Ugandan Eminent Women to respond to conflict situations that could arise in the upcoming elections.
As part of continued efforts that began in 2016 to strengthen the mediation capacities of the WSR, ACCORD conducted a series of online mediation and conflict prevention trainings. These included trainings in late 2020 and early 2021 ahead of the January presidential elections; and as a follow up and recommendation to this ACCORD conducted three training sessions; that focused on a critical self-analysis of the group. The WSR identified gaps that required a holistic vision and the need to take on a non-partisan approach to peacebuilding. Thus, the sessions placed emphasis on leadership skills, particularly within the electoral context. The trainings were held over three sessions, on 19 May, 26 May, and 02 June 2021. The first session dealt with self-reflections and critical lessons in election monitoring; the second session dealt with peacebuilding in the period between elections; while the third session focused on the centrality of being non-partisan leaders. The trainings strengthened the capacities of the network as well as provided technical and substantive expertise to the WSR. The trainings contributed towards strengthening the establishment of national gender networks that form part of the WSR’s working modalities. The trainings also contributed to experience and lesson sharing, as well as strengthening the collaboration amongst the members of the WSR to approach these issues in a harmonised and unified way.
The engagements with the Ugandan Women Situation room have been an ongoing process since 2016 on strengthening the skills of the Ugandan Eminent Women to ready themselves during an electoral cycle. ACCORD is committed to continuing this process of empowering women leaders to participate effectively and efficiently in processes aimed at mitigating and managing conflict.
