elbarlament at the Regional Workshop on Women, Peace and Security and Climate Change in the Arab Region

A member of the elbarlament team is attending the Regional Workshop on Women, Peace and Security and Climate Change in the Arab Region, taking place in Cairo on 23–24 September 2026.

Convened by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in partnership with UN Women, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and the Cairo International Center for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding (CCCPA), the two-day workshop brings together representatives of national women’s machineries, ministries, civil society organisations and regional and international partners.

The workshop focuses on a critical and increasingly interconnected challenge: how gender inequality, climate change and conflict interact and reinforce existing vulnerabilities across the Arab region.

From policy coherence to practical action

A central focus of the workshop is the need for greater coherence between policy frameworks that are often developed and implemented separately, including Women, Peace and Security National Action Plans, climate policies, Nationally Determined Contributions, National Adaptation Plans and disaster-risk-reduction strategies.

Participants will explore practical approaches to strengthening this coherence, with particular attention to four areas:

• governance, coordination and financing;

• institutional and technical capacity;

• data, knowledge and evidence; and

• translating evidence and policy commitments into concrete action.

The programme also provides an opportunity to exchange national experiences and discuss how women’s meaningful participation can be strengthened in climate governance, peace and security processes and decision-making.

Connecting regional discussions with our work

For elbarlament, participation in the workshop provides an opportunity to bring perspectives from our work in Iraq and the wider MENA region into a broader regional conversation, while learning from the experiences and approaches of colleagues and partners from across the Arab region.

We are particularly interested in the discussion around the gender–climate–conflict nexus and what it means for women’s participation, institutional responses and policy-making in contexts affected by conflict and climate-related pressures.

We look forward to two days of exchange, learning and collaboration, and to bringing relevant insights from the workshop back into our work.