Active Women's Civil Society Organizations for Peace in Kyrgyzstan

The project aims to strengthen the institutional capacity of women-led civil society organizations and foster an enabling environment for their participation in strategic decision-making. This serves as a foundation to address climate security and promote peace in Kyrgyzstan. The project is funded by the UN Peacebuilding Fund. As a result of the project, women's civil society organizations in Kyrgyzstan will mitigate climate-related security risks in the targeted areas and at the national level, contributing to sustainable peace. This will be achieved through the following approaches: Systemic approach to peacebuilding: The project recognizes the need to reassess existing approaches that often segregate women's movements as a separate issue. Instead, it seeks to adopt new approaches that understand the interconnectedness of various issues and explore possibilities for coherent action. A shared vision for women's CSOs is developed based on this approach. "Do no harm" principle: The project will identify and mitigate potential negative consequences for women's CSOs and other stakeholders. Embracing a human-centered approach, the entire project will become a platform for collective learning and iteration. Women's CSOs will play a significant role in building peace by effecting changes in their organizational, social, and institutional practices. Recognition of local knowledge: The project acknowledges the existing expertise among individuals and groups. Its role is to facilitate a process through which women's CSOs can discover their knowledge and identify solutions to their challenges. Women and women's CSOs are seen as drivers and owners of development processes. The project's sustainability depends on empowering beneficiaries to rely on their own knowledge and solutions while remaining open to new ideas. Transformational experiential processes for capacity building: Effective and transformative conflict prevention solutions are generated and co-created when diverse perspectives and experiences, especially from women CSOs and participants, are involved. The preparatory process, including the composition of the participant group, is given special attention. Design thinking workshops play a crucial role in discussing change, reframing problems, and co-creating solutions. Moreover, the design thinking approach addresses gaps and challenges in policy/legislative implementation faced by the executive branch and legislators. It encourages open discussions about internal issues/fears of service providers and collaboratively develops roadmaps and prototypes for responding to climate risks within the available resources. Geographic scope of the project: The project's activities will be focused on the Batken and Leilek districts of the Batken region.