Welcome to our sixth and final episode of season 1.

As Ukraine and Russian peace negotiations begin this week, the absence of women has been notably present and for many in the feminist space, an indication of the lack of consideration of Ukrainian women’s needs in the process.

Evidence shows that the participation of civil society groups, including women’s organizations, makes a peace agreement 64% less likely to fail. Yet, only about seven out of every ten peace processes still did not include women mediators or women signatories. Why do women continue to be left out of these important negotiations?

To discuss the opportunities and challenges of women’s involvement in conflict resolution, we’re joined by Eva Tabbasam from Gender Action Peace and Security (GAPS) UK. GAPS are a membership organisation that works to hold the UK government and wider international community on their commitments to women and girls in conflict areas worldwide.

Here is a link to the helpful two-pager we discussed on Ukraine and how other organisations can best support women and women’s groups there.

Welcome back to the Women in Dev podcast - we hope you’ve had a good month.

This month marks two years since the inaugural WID conference where over 400 delegates from across the international development space came together to discuss and put forward a different vision of the sector; one built on justice, equity, and with feminist principles at the heart of it.

Since then, WID has grown to become a home for reimaging what a feminist and progressive international development sector could be - hosting events and webinars, running a jobs board and helping to foster partnerships across the space.

So for this month’s episode, we’re looking inwards at what it’s been like building the WID network since the conference, what we’ve gotten right, and where we still have to grow. For it, I’m joined by WID founder Rachel Firth. Rachel is the Managing Director of GOC and has over 15 years + experience working with clients on national and international projects in the Gender and Global Health space.

As always, if you enjoyed the episode, give us a rate and subscribe on whatever podcast platform you are listening.

For this month’s podcast, we’re looking at the prevailing gender data gap and the importance of turning data into action to improve women’s lives. One year on since our partner, Women’s March Global, ran the Global Count survey as a direct response to the lack of data about what women worldwide see as barriers to progress, turning the 31,000 responses into action has been a challenging process and begs the question of how we create space for women’s experiences to be listened to and heard and how we turn this into action for a progressive future.

For the episode, we’re joined by Emma Bates who is the founder and CEO of Diem, a social platform for knowledge sharing for women and non-binary folks. Diem is subverting the norms when it comes to social media, offering a place for individuals to learn, offer experience and connect without the

We talk about how data has become a ‘dirty’ word and yet how valuable it is to have quality data on women’s issues to make good decisions; we talk about how Diem creates a space for knowledge sharing and the relief that users feel to be able to do so away from the male gaze; and we finish the episode discussing Emma’s optimism for a future where everyone can understand the power they have.

Download Diem now and get lost in its world of sharing and connecting.