Enhancing quality capacity building and knowledge exchange is at the heart of the WPHF mandate to serve as a global hub of knowledge for local women peacebuilders, humanitarians, and human rights defenders around the world. The WPHF Secretariat launched its Global Community of Practice (CoP) in 2020 to connect WPHF civil society partners, strengthen their networks, and reinforce their capacities.
Enabling the deepening and expansion of its capacity building and knowledge exchange efforts, the WPHF Secretariat established the Global Learning Hub (L-HUB) in 2021. The L-HUB offers enhanced training, exchange, and mentoring opportunities to a wide pool of local CSO leaders working to build peace and respond to crises across the globe.
WPHF Global Learning Hub
WPHF L-HUB initiatives include:
- The CSO Peer Learning Awards, launched in collaboration with Women Have Wings, to promote the work and recognize the efforts of 10 women CSO leaders engaged in peace and crisis response — supporting mutual capacity building, collaboration and networking opportunities between tandems of CSOs (meet the 2021 awardees based in DRC, Jordan, Nigeria, Palestine and Uganda here, the 2022 awardees based in DRC, Haiti, Mali, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu here, and the 2023 awardees based in Lebanon, Palestine and Myanmar here).
- The WPHF Mentorship Scheme will mobilize the expertise of Germany’s Action Network on Forced Displacement to provide capacity building to WPHF civil society partners and peer learning and mentoring relationships between tandems of CSOs focusing on women in displacement.
L-HUB Events and Tools
The L-HUB is managed by the WPHF Secretariat and provides WPHF civil society partners with:
- A Digital Library, which includes a wide range of tools and resources for WPHF CSO partners, including a repository of WPHF-authored training resources for women’s CSOs, knowledge products produced by WPHF CSO partners, and other useful materials on peacebuilding and humanitarian response.
- An Email Distribution List to share capacity building resources and knowledge exchange opportunities.
- An exclusive Facebook Group enabling civil society leaders to exchange impact, share lessons learned and facilitate online dialogue from around the world, as well as keep updates on WPHF CoP events and initiatives.
- A Capacity Building Programme tailored to the unique needs of CSO members, composed of training modules and online webinars covering critical institutional development skills, made available in Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.
- The Peer Exchange Series constituting Peer Exchange Sessions, which provide an engaging space for CSO members to share strategies and challenges on WPSHA topics, and Knowledge Cafés, where CSO members present original knowledge products resulting from their work.
- Global In-Person Convenings fostering in-person connections and joint advocacy between WPHF civil society partners, which will be organized every two/three years contingent on available funding. In May 2023, WPHF – in collaboration with the German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO) – convened the Global Women’s Forum for Peace and Humanitarian Action (GWF) in Berlin with 200 international and government stakeholders, including 87 women’s rights organizations across 29 countries. The Forum provided women leaders with a unique opportunity to build relationships and sisterhood, showcase their impact, and liaise with government donors and high-level decision makers, UN entities, and INGOs. The GWF culminated with the adoption of the Berlin Declaration, capturing the priorities and recommendations for action of the CSOs to influence future key policy processes. Following this, the L-HUB launched a Call for Proposals for CSO partners that participated in the GWF to identify advocacy actions pushing forward the recommendations in the Berlin Declaration. As a result, four CSOs have received a grant to implement two joint advocacy actions aimed at accelerating women’s participation in peace and humanitarian response, which will be implemented in 2024.
