By Sania Farooqui
BENGALURU, India, Jul 13 2026 (IPS)
For most individuals, the process of peace starts with the signing of a ceasefire or an agreement among politicians. However, those who live in regions experiencing violence understand that peace is made long before politicians meet at the negotiating table. Peace is created among communities by people who work everyday to ensure that no violence takes place, and that disputes are sorted out.
Muna Luqman, Yemeni peacebuilding advisor and humanitarian leader.
Women have been playing central roles in the process of making peace, but their role is largely ignored in official peacebuilding processes.Speaking to IPS Inter Press Service, Yemeni peacebuilding advisor and humanitarian leader Muna Luqman challenged conventional thinking about who builds peace and where peacebuilding truly begins, “Communities never wait until peace happens,” Luqman said. “They’re working to protect peace on a daily basis.”
Based on her extensive experience working in Yemen for more than 15 years, Luqman explained how local communities, especially women, resolve disputes, provide crucial services, negotiate humanitarian assistance and create dialogical spaces way ahead of any intervention of international organizations.
Luqman is the founder and chairperson of Food for Humanity, has seen first-hand the changes conflict brings about in society. While living through the Yemeni civil war, she faced airstrikes and negotiated the evacuation of civilians caught up in the war zone. These experiences led her to realize that humanitarian response alone is inadequate.
“If we only respond to the consequences of conflict without addressing its causes, we will always be a step behind,” she reflected. Her experience also exposed one of the greatest challenges facing local peacebuilders and that is of recognition.
“We thought we would be the first to be supported,” she said, referring to local organisations that led humanitarian responses before international actors arrived. “But we found out that it was a long process.”
According to a report by UN Women, around 676 million lived within 50 kilometers of deadly conflict in 2024 – the highest figure since the 1990s. Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, said, “Women and girls are being killed in record numbers, shut out of peace tables, and left unprotected as wars multiply. Women do not need more promises, they need power, protection, and equal participation.”
Data collected by the United Nations from 2020-2024 found that, “Women’s representation as negotiators, mediators and signatories in peace processes is far below the target set by the UN. In 2024, women made up only seven percent of negotiators on average worldwide, and nearly nine out of ten negotiation tracks included no women negotiators”. The report stated, women were slightly more represented in mediation roles, averaging 14 percent but still, two-thirds of mediation efforts did not include women.
The discrepancy for Luqman pointed to an underlying problem in international peacebuilding. While local groups responded immediately to communities in need, other institutions were bound by mandates, funding, and procedures. It becomes evident, she says, why true inclusion in peacebuilding should be more than merely symbolic in nature.
True inclusion requires recognizing women not as mere recipients of help or observers of processes, but as active participants in negotiating, mediating, and taking crucial decisions. It is proven that peace treaties are much more sustainable in those cases where women are actively involved in the negotiation process. Women broaden the agenda from purely political aspects like political power-sharing to such crucial areas as justice, education, health care, livelihoods, displacement, and community reconciliation.
Luqman believes that local women possess a unique understanding of these realities because they remain deeply embedded within their communities. “Women mediators are willing to prevent disagreements before they become violence,” she explained. She has witnessed women in Yemen securing the release of prisoners, organizing their communities to rebuild schools and water supplies, and preventing children from joining armed groups. This is often done discreetly, outside the limelight of the international community.
“The strength of women peacebuilders is their ability to mobilize their communities,” she said. However, it is precisely these women who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. They are threatened, intimidated, forced to flee, and often lack funds despite helping others. Protecting women peacebuilders must be a priority on the global agenda, Luqman asserts.
“They do this work while they are facing either lack of funding or no funding at all. They remain resilient, they remain vulnerable at the same time, and they remain under threats.”
She believes that the international community needs to go beyond recognizing the contribution of women and work to provide financial support to women-led organizations that are trusted and credible within the local communities.
While serving as the United Nations National Coordinator on Inclusion in the Peace Process of Yemen, Luqman developed an approach that would allow local people to speak up. The initiative did not consider participation just as a formal aspect but actually aimed to bring in the community perspective. “It wasn’t symbolic participation,” she told me. “We really took that analysis and used it in our system.” This is because peace processes cannot be made by the political elite only; they need to be inclusive of communities that have been experiencing conflict.
In Luqman’s opinion, local governance, climate challenges, livelihoods, transitional justice, and building trust are not marginal questions but rather central factors in avoiding further outbreaks of violence.
Luqman insists on the need for peacebuilding to involve listening: “Sometimes listening to the people themselves and giving them a space is in itself a peace process.”
In the context of rising complexity of conflicts, the importance of inclusion into peace processes has never been so urgent. Women’s involvement in the processes cannot be considered as some kind of equality issue or simply as an obligation under international mechanisms.
On the contrary, it is strategically necessary based on experience and community trust. The message from Luqman to policymakers is obvious: local women peacebuilders are not marginal figures in peacebuilding but its cornerstone. “The local women peacebuilders are the structure and the backbone of these societies,” Luqman said. “They are valuable. They should be treated as valuable assets. They should be supported and protected.” Constructing sustainable peace is not possible only through negotiations of the parties involved in armed conflict but also through investing in people who have done so many years of keeping communities together despite the situation being unrecognizable.
Sania Farooqui is an independent journalist and host of The Peace Brief, a platform dedicated to amplifying the voices of women in peacebuilding and human rights.
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Le Tribunal de commerce de Cotonou a condamné, le 25 juin 2026, PROXIMITY GROUP AFRICA SA à payer 23.399.298 FCFA à STRALIX SARL.
L'émission d'un ordre de virement bancaire ne suffit pas, à elle seule, à éteindre une dette. Encore faut-il que les fonds parviennent effectivement au bénéficiaire. C'est le principe qu'a rappelé le Tribunal de commerce de Cotonou dans son jugement n°057/2026/CJ1/S2/TCC du 25 juin 2026, rendu dans un litige opposant STRALIX SARL à PROXIMITY GROUP AFRICA SA.
L'affaire trouve son origine dans l'exécution de prestations réalisées par STRALIX pour la succursale guinéenne de PROXIMITY GROUP AFRICA dans le cadre d'un marché conclu avec ECOBANK Guinée. Une facture n°0117-AG-SC-ST-25, émise le 8 décembre 2025, d'un montant de 36.672 euros, soit 23.399.298 FCFA, demeure impayée.
Pour régler cette créance, PROXIMITY GROUP AFRICA affirme avoir initié, le 17 décembre 2025, un virement international depuis son compte domicilié chez ECOBANK Guinée. Son compte aurait bien été débité. Mais plusieurs mois plus tard, STRALIX assure n'avoir reçu aucun paiement.
Selon PROXIMITY GROUP AFRICA, sa banque lui aurait indiqué que le virement avait été rejeté par la BIIC avant d'être retourné. La banque béninoise soutient au contraire n'avoir jamais reçu les fonds.
Face à cette situation, STRALIX assigne, le 27 mars 2026, PROXIMITY GROUP AFRICA, ECOBANK Guinée et la BIIC devant le Tribunal de commerce de Cotonou. Elle réclame le paiement de sa facture, 400 millions FCFA de dommages-intérêts ainsi que des frais irrépétibles.
En défense, PROXIMITY GROUP AFRICA reconnaît devoir la somme réclamée mais estime s'être libérée de son obligation dès lors que le virement a été ordonné et que son compte a été débité. Elle demande que la responsabilité soit transférée à ECOBANK Guinée.
Pour le Tribunal, « le virement international initié, le 17 décembre 2025 (...) n'a pu atteindre la société STRALIX SARL » et « la BIIC SA n'a pas non plus reçu les fonds ».
La juridiction ajoute que « les raisons pour lesquelles la société ECOBANK Guinée SA n'a pas exécuté l'ordre de virement ne sont pas connues de la juridiction de céans », ce qui ne permet pas d'apprécier la responsabilité de cette banque dans l'échec de l'opération.
S'appuyant sur l'article 1315 du Code civil, le Tribunal rappelle que « celui qui réclame l'exécution d'une obligation doit la prouver. Réciproquement, celui qui se prétend libéré doit justifier le paiement ». Les magistrats en déduisent que, STRALIX n'ayant jamais reçu les fonds, « c'est à bon droit qu'elle en sollicite le paiement ».
En conséquence, PROXIMITY GROUP AFRICA est condamnée à payer à STRALIX 36.672 euros, soit 23.399.298 FCFA, correspondant à la facture impayée.
Le Tribunal a rejeté la demande de 400 millions FCFA de dommages-intérêts formulée par STRALIX. Il considère que PROXIMITY GROUP AFRICA « a manifesté sa bonne foi en effectuant un ordre de virement » et que le préjudice invoqué ne se distingue pas de celui résultant du simple non-paiement de la créance.
Les juges déboutent également PROXIMITY GROUP AFRICA de sa demande de 50 millions FCFA de dommages-intérêts contre ECOBANK Guinée, estimant que les pièces du dossier montrent que les fonds ont finalement été recrédités sur son compte et que le préjudice allégué n'est pas établi.
Ce jugement rendu en premier ressort est susceptible d'appel.
Deux (02) personnes ont perdu la vie après avoir été frappées par la foudre, dimanche 12 juillet 2026, à Daroukpara, dans la commune de Nikki.
Drame à Daroukpara, un village de l'arrondissement de Suya. Deux personnes ont été mortellement frappées par la foudre selon les informations rapportées. Alertés, les éléments de la Police républicaine se sont rendus sur les lieux afin d'effectuer les constats. À l'issue des formalités, les dépouilles ont été remises aux familles pour l'inhumation.
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Fegyverszüneti kormány kellene, legalábbis ideiglenesen – mondta rádiónknak Kelemen Hunor RMDSZ-elnök, aki ott volt a pártoknak az államelnökkel való újabb egyeztetésén. A tárgyalás eredménytelenül zárult. Miért nem sikerült ezúttal sem megegyezni? Meg tudják-e hozni a szükséges törvénymódosításokat a PNRR-s alapok lehívásához és mekkora esélyt lát az előrehozott választásokra? – kérdeztük Kelemen Hunort. Forrai Szerénke interjúja
Articolul Kelemen Hunor: fegyverszüneti kormány kellene apare prima dată în Kolozsvári Rádió Románia.