Background to the Research

• In the 1990s, women were involved in initiatives to bring about political stability and peace in NI and this chapter explores the nature and impact of these initiatives.
  

Research Approach

• The author refers to the work of the Opsahl Commission, the British and Irish governments' 'A New Framework for Agreement' and the work of the NI Women's Coalition in order to examine the role of women in the peace process.
  

Main Findings

• In their evidence to the Opsahl Commission women accounted for much of their sense of powerlessness and exclusion in terms of the absence of everyday issues from the political agenda in NI.
• Women challenged the narrow view that politics is confined to formal political structures. They were actively exploring and extending the boundaries of politics to include the myriad activities carried out by women in their communities to address social and economic deprivation and in conflict resolution.
• Women sought a new kind of democratic politics in which the diversity of men and women's ordinary lives would be reflected in policy.
• The NI Women's Coalition can be viewed as a direct descendant of the work carried out by women in the 1990s to gain a central role in the decision making process. The guiding principles of the coalition were inclusion, accommodation, human rights and equity.
• The Coalition has made a small but important contribution to the peace talks; it was instrumental in ensuring that the consent of minority parties was necessary to any agreement. It placed emphasis on the engagement of the whole population in what it maintained needed to be a peace process accessible to all members of society.
• The establishment of new forms of government founded on equality, participation and accessibility at local and regional level puts women in a unique position to make a major contribution to the future shape of NI's political and social life, given the valuable experiences accumulated by them over the decades.