The dream is sustained peace and a goat farm in Aceh. She is the mother of three and wife of an ex-combatant, and has attended a business training programme by Terres de Hommes, an international organization helping to improve living conditions for disadvantaged children. She talks to the group of women leaders who have come from Sri Lanka to learn about peace, recovery and reconstruction efforts of Indonesia. Her husband was the commander of a group during the ethno-national conflict in Aceh (1998-2005). She helped her husband and his group by collecting food and medicine for the combatants. She now hopes to expand her goat business and establish links with areas out of Aceh.

An extensive exchange of views and experiences on conflict-recovery took place in Indonesia in the first week of August, when a selected group of Sri Lankan women leaders met with counterparts in Jakarta and Aceh. The focus of the meetings was to draw lessons from the policies and programmes that have been put in place to address the special needs of women and children during a recovery phase. Participants from Sri Lanka report that the visit inspired them to formulate new project ideas to bring together women from the north and south of the country to learn from each other and build the country together. The women also discussed the possibility of organizing exchange programmes for young people. They were, however, concerned with the challenges they continue to face in terms of resources, for instance, marketing finished products, establishing effective coordination between the Government, NGO partners and the women in the community.

The trip to Aceh was sponsored by the UNDP Gender Thematic Trust Fund, as part of UNDP’s wider efforts in recent years to support the Parliament and the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Empowerment to improve women’s political representation and participation in decision-making.

The delegation consisted of women from Ministerial to Pradeshiya Sabha level, and was led by M.Sumanadasa, Secretary to the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Empowerment. The women came from all across Sri Lanka including the conflict-affected North and East. The meetings and discussions in Aceh took place with informal interpretation in Tamil, English and Sinhala.

The event was seen as strengthening Sri Lanka’s partnership with Indonesia, and an opportunity to learn from the two countries’ mutual experiences of conflict and tsunami. More specifically, the participants from Sri Lanka were given inspiration and ideas to take back and apply in their own process of peace-building, recovery and reconstruction programmes. The women will share the Indonesian experience within their own districts and political decision-making arenas, with the aim of encouraging and educating more women to participate in planning Sri Lanka’s recovery and development.

The introductory meetings in Jakarta included interactions with Indonesian Government officials-the State Ministry for Women’s Empowerment, State Ministry for National Development Planning and the National Commission on Violence against Women, the UN, representatives of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Indonesia and the Aceh Reintegration Agency. In Aceh the delegation met with UN agencies and NGOs and CBOs.

While women within a war-torn society share the goal of security through the termination of violence it cannot be assumed that their interests in reconstruction are identical to those of men. This is also reflected in the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, which recognizes the disproportionate and unique impact of war on women and children and their contributions to conflict resolution and sustainable peace. It also calls upon all actors involved in post-conflict reconstruction to adopt a gender perspective in resettlement, reintegration, rehabilitation and post-conflict reconstruction.
The Indonesian model of post-conflict recovery included focus on female former combatants, female-headed households, sexual violence, and involving women in post-conflict recovery. Counselling and promoting women’s right is an important aspect, but ensuring sustainable livelihoods was also given equal attention in the Indonesian model. Thus, many of the interventions had very concrete outputs like providing victims of war with sewing machines alongside rebuilding of local women’s Government institutions with training of trainers and administrative support. Activities included, for example, establishing shops for cake-baking, coffee shops, shoe-making and goat-breeding. These initiatives involved in a context of networking and group consultations and were seen as an inspiration for the Sri Lankan delegation. The Sri Lankan delegation further highlighted their visit to an emergency shelter under the ‘Project on rehabilitation of victims of violence’, and the information on the State’s intervention to the promotion and protection of women’s rights as something they found particularly useful.