Despite Iraqi women’s increasing political, social, and economic participation, barriers to full gender equality still remain. Numerous reports have detailed the problems facing women’s equality in Iraq, but their recommendations have often languished due to the enormity of the problem or lack of stakeholder buy in.

Women’s Campaign International (WCI) has taken a different approach – bringing seemingly disparate stakeholders from around the region to spend two days debating, brainstorming, and visioning a better future for Iraqi women. WCI’s ALWANE Coalition two-day Future Search fostered a spirit of collaboration and understanding, empowering participants to work together to develop a common vision, identify objectives, and map out strategies and concrete action steps that will advance women’s leadership and participation in every sector of Iraqi society.

2012 Iraq Future Search participants

The Future Search model is a unique, multi-stakeholder planning process that engages large, diverse groups in a dialogue about a shared issue, and then facilitates collaboration on a shared vision for the future. Recognizing the value of diverse voices and the necessity of regional collaboration on country-specific challenges, WCI’s ALWANE Coalition brought together government officials, NGOs, youth, and academics from across the Levant, North Africa, and GCC. The process fostered collaboration among the regions current and future leaders – creating a sustainable network extending long beyond the two-day meeting.

Using this model, Iraqi Future Search attendees…

• Established a common history by creating a regional timeline highlighting key local, national, regional and international events in the history of women’s leadership in Iraq;
• Drafted a map of world trends (both positive and negative) affecting the advancement of women’s leadership in Iraq;
• Created a comprehensive vision for advancing women’s leadership and participation in political, economic, cultural, legal, and social sectors;
• Envisioned what the ideal future could look like; and,
• Developed objectives, strategies, and action items for moving towards that ideal future.

In the process of establishing a common history, participants realized that Iraq has been at the forefront of advancing women’s rights in the past, but has also experienced some of the sharpest declines in women’s rights due to a turbulent past laced with conflict, sectarianism, invasion, and instability. Undaunted, conference attendees committed to the cause of advancing women’s rights and participation in Iraq. “I strive to create a cultured, conscious society prudent of sectarianism and violence where women are effective and equal partners to men working to put Iraq back at the top,” pledged Ali Al-Haydary, an ALWANE mentee and Future Search summit attendee.

Group of Iraqi officials and youth work to draft policy recommendations

Liza Nissan Hido, Director of the Baghdad Women’s Association (BWA), concurred, saying that she sought to “Create a society that is empty of violence against the woman, respecting of her rights [and] conscious of [her] capabilities.”

Participants’ identified a number of objectives including strengthening and supporting NGOs that empower women and girls in the region, developing a gender-sensitive national budget, launching a televised media campaign to promote gender equality, creating new legislation to more effectively address women’s issues and rights, and promoting social values that affirm women’s equality. The participatory process of crafting a vision, and developing concrete strategies and action steps reinvigorated participants’ commitments towards utilizing their own expertise, networks, and resources to advance women’s rights and leadership in Iraqi society. In the weeks following the summit, participants have already begun to share the outcomes of the summit with their own organizations and institutions, and are taking the next steps that will ensure the continuity and sustainability of this initiative.

Still in working draft form, the report has already begun to create waves across the region. Soon after the Future Search, Country Officer Dr. Essam Asaad and four mentors and mentees of the ALWANE Iraq Committee were invited by the UNDP and Iraqi Ministry of Planning to participate in the drafting of UNDP’s international report. Dr. Asaad and the ALWANE committee members took the opportunity to present the Future Search Report and received tremendous interest amongst workshop attendees. As a result, the team was later invited to participate in the writing of the National Human Development Report on Youth amongst a group of 11 other experts. They were asked to integrate the Future Search report into this work, particularly in crafting the section regarding girls and young women in Iraq. And most recently, the Ministry of Youth and Sports in Iraq has selected Dr. Asaad and an ALWANE mentor, Dr. Wafaa Al Mahdawi, to be among five experts who will write the National Strategy for Youth 2013-2017, one of the most important plans that will have tremendous impact on the work done for youth in Iraq.

You can now read the full report summarizing the outcomes of the Iraqi Future Search meeting