The Country Intelligence Report

Exploring the Role of Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) in Consulting and Society

• Country Intelligence Group Ltd

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Welcome to a conversation that promises to broaden your understanding of Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) and its relevance in our modern world. We're thrilled to have Dr. Susan Yoshihara and Dr. Grace Hoffman, leading figures from the American Council on Women Peace and Security, join us. Dr. Yoshihara walks us through the birth of WPS from the United Nations and its pivotal role in fostering peaceful societies through the active involvement of women. She further explores how this framework has woven itself into the fabric of U.S. law, demonstrating its far-reaching implications.

As we wade through this international framework, Dr. Hoffman illuminates why industries, particularly consulting, should pay close attention to the strategic agenda of WPS. Discover how peaceful and resilient societies can unlock prosperity for American businesses and why WPS might soon become a standard prerequisite in government contracts. We press on to examine the crucial function WPS serves in government strategy, funding, and operations. Dr. Hoffman shares her knowledge on tailoring WPS learning modules for clients, underlining the significance of partnerships and evidence collection in delivering actionable results. Prepare to be equipped with insights that could be pivotal to future-proofing your operations and fostering positive societal change. Don't miss this engaging discussion!


Speaker 1:

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Country Intelligence Report. I'm your host, Spencer Bentley.

Speaker 2:

In this episode, we're talking about one of our most important and impactful services. The discipline of women peace and security for industry government and government contractors. We'll be joined by doctor Susan Yoshihara president and founder of the American Council on Women Peace and Security and Dr. Grace Hoffman, a fellow at the American Council for Women Peace and Security. There's a lot of ground to cover here. So let's just start with providing a basic framework for our listeners understanding of what women peace and security is. So we'll just start at the top. What is women peace and security? Dr. Yoshihara?

Speaker 3:

Spencer, thanks for having us on American Council, and loves our partnership with Country Intel. We've done some great work together, so I'm excited to share what we've done and what we can do for industry. Women peace and security is the name of an international framework. It came out of the United Nations in the year two thousand. And it's about building peaceful societies by getting women involved. They were really missing from peace building before two thousand and that meant the peace deals weren't working. They weren't sticking. They weren't lasting. The societies were fragile and they were falling back into conflict. Which meant they couldn't build. They couldn't build their business. They couldn't build their up their GDP. And we couldn't get women involved in society. And we know that societies that include civil society and women in particular in their economies are more resilient. There are better places for American business. There are better places to work, to travel, to partner. And so women peace and security provided that incredibly necessary missing piece. So by getting women to the negotiating table and by protecting women and girls in crisis and conflict, you know, these days we understand that civilians really are the targets of harm in conflict. And so there was a missing part of our security agenda that ignored the civilian harm. And by engaging in women peace and security, we make sure that we're including everybody. In that protection effort. And also getting women and girls their share of post conflict aid. You know, we know that when we empower women with post conflict aid that it get it finds the right place. It finds families. It finds the neediest. It gets shared. That's not always true, but it's usually true. And that too was missing from, you know, our efforts to stabilize countries and make them more resilient So for all those reasons, the United Nations started this, what they call an agenda or framework on women peace and security, And in twenty seventeen, Congress passed a law making it the law of the land here in the United States. It is now required for four of our agencies. Defense, state, USAID, DHS. And, you know, in the coming years, it could include more. And so we're here to help industry understand what that means for them.

Speaker 2:

That's fascinating. And yes, a crucially important topic. And strategic focus that I'm I'm very proud that Country Intel has has helped leading the vanguard. So Just sort of trying to contextualize this, why should the consulting industry care about when a piece of security has a strategic agenda?

Speaker 3:

Well, I think there are a few reasons, and I'm going to defer to Grace for some particulars on that. But I would say strategically speaking, peaceful resilient societies are just better places for American business. There are places for us to travel, better places for us to have cooperation. And societies that empower and employ women are not just more peaceful than more prosperous. Right? And that's good for American business. You can start out by finding out whether the countries you're engaging with or have partnerships with, have an action plan for example. Fifty four countries. See, a hundred and four countries, maybe more now. But half the world has a national action plan on women peace and security. So while you might not have ever heard of it, it's something that's really widespread. And in that plan and we can help you navigate that plan and analyze it, you'll find out which agencies you might be working with are actually working on things like a quality of opportunity, working on getting women more involved, in the security issues that you care about to make sure your, you know, your consulting your company or your clients are safe and secure. We can help you navigate that action plan and find out what the goals are for that country for the next four years and how you might be a part of that. I think it's important for industry, for other reasons. For example, as I said, four government agencies are now required to do it. Congress is getting much more involved. There is a congressional caucus, some women peace and security. There will be more oversight, and contracts coming down the pipe. We'll probably have some requirements in it. So with that, I'll turn it over to Graceland.

Speaker 4:

Right. I think it's a really important question and especially when we're thinking about government contractors and why we should care about WPS. I think that it's really important to think about this as we look into the future of WPS. And we really see that something that's gaining momentum and is going to be continuing to gain momentum and support. Throughout the coming years and really into the foreseeable future. In fact, we really can foresee that it's not going to be long before the requirements of WPS are going to be showing up in more government contracts. And so integrating, you know, getting ahead of that and integrating WPS into your own work, into your own companies and even certifying your workforce in WPS to varying levels, even if it's just a basic certification, can really give you a competitive edge when you're competing for those government contracts, particularly with the four agencies that Susan had mentioned before, the Department of State Department of Defense, the US Agency for International Development, and also the Department of Homeland Security. So of course, this is because WPS is a whole of government strategy. Congress passed the Women Peace and Security Act in twenty seventeen. And this Act specifically required these four agencies that I just mentioned to implement WPS. And so that means that there's also a lot of funding that's tied to WPS. So for example, the DOD has set aside quite a lot of WPS funding, and we're seeing that that's likely to increase in the coming years. And so when we're thinking about competing for those contracts, it's gonna be even more essential to demonstrate that our companies are aware of WPS and even have already got ahead of it and certified their our workforce and our employees. And it's really something that is not going to go away. There's a lot of topics that can come up in government that are kind of trendy for a couple of years and they pop up. But because WPS is a law of the land. It's not going to go away and it's only going to be continually increasing to show up in our work with the government. And then also why we should care and why government contractors and industries should care. I mean, if we really think Susan has already touched upon this a little bit, but whenever society or the human domain starts to enter into an effect business and operations, WPS can really help us to have a clear and and more holo holistic and really precise understanding of what's going on in the environments that we're operating in and we're doing business. So by using an analysis that WPS provides a way of looking at that operating environment. We're able to have a clear understanding of what's really going on. And and really who doesn't want to have a better understanding of the environment they're working in before we start to make important decisions for our business. And also really who doesn't want an environment that is peaceful and stable so that we can work well with the people who live there and also to conduct our business in a safe stable way for a long time.

Speaker 2:

That makes a lot of sense. You know, it it it seems that it's not only a strategic imperative in order for companies to stay ahead of the game and and gain that competitive edge in the market, but also a moral undertaking as well. So doing good by doing good, I think is is is obviously, a good thing. And for any business out there that's serious about future proofing their their business model when they comes to what sort of opportunities they're going to be bidding for, putting out proposals for, having that WPS knowledge seems crucial to really solidifying your place as as a place of positive change and also positive business growth as these funds start to funnel their way out into the market. So That makes a lot of sense. You know, Country Intel, we've been at the vanguard of of this movement partnering with the the council. And I just wanted to get a little bit more background on on how the partnership came about and you know, how this is is helping shape the council's strategy as well as has benefited us a country intel.

Speaker 3:

Well, thank you, Spencer. This has been a terrific partnership, and it really shows you competitive advantages of these two organizations. Because when the law was passed and the DOD you know, had its strategy hot off the presses. Country Intel was in the door on that contract very quickly. Ready to say we will help the defense department create this curriculum. Now they didn't have the in house expertise yet. But Country Intel is fantastic at going out and finding great partners. Thank you. We are who we are one of those partners and we love to be a partner with Country Intel. And had us in place. We are the subject matter experts. We brought in a total of five of us who worked on this project. Over the last three years at DoD. It was wholly new to DoD. They really didn't know what to do. So we had, you know, we had to come in the door, understand what they were trying to do, learn from them first and foremost, and then put it into so put it into practice, soup to nuts, really designing the curriculum all the way to teaching it, following up, and training the faculty. You know, American Council for its part is a WPS organization. We've been around five years, but we're made up of women leaders. So we have ten fellows and senior fellows who've been in the organization from people who have run the state apartments, women's office of women's, international women's issues. We have women running international religious freedom organizations. We have scholars who've been doing not just working on Capitol Hill, chiefs of staff to influential congressmen who know how the sausage is made, but also doing things like work on the ground and trauma informed approaches to livelihood. I mean, our expertise, we understand that today problems are complex, and it doesn't need a stovepipe answer. It needs a complex nuanced answer. So American Council was able to bring that to security cooperation, which is also very complex and international. It was really it was really nice fit when we came on board in the year twenty twenty. And I think these business people know consultants know that they're facing something unique. We often find ourselves overwhelmed by a challenge. And what I like about Country Intel is its focus on both the business management and data and research is it helps you break down that complex problem. It really has an advantage there with these people it brings in. So that with our wisdom added on top made for a great partnership.

Speaker 2:

Definitely, a partnership that we we very much value. And just on a personal level, we we truly enjoy working with with all of you from from the council. It's been nothing but but positive and fruitful on our end for sure. Right.

Speaker 4:

And and it's really been a great partnership. I mean, I just to to second it or to third it. But in terms of, you know, what that partnership has produced. It's been really amazing to combine the capabilities of Country Intel with the expertise of the council. So when we think about what we offer for WPS training, we've really been able to create many things that we can offer And that can look like very different depending on the client that we're working for. But when we're thinking about what we offer, you know, they're our online micro learning. You know, this is kind of the basic offering basic course that can be used to get you know, baseline understanding of what WPS is, we can come in and create that introduction course. But really with a focus on each of our clients and what they're focusing on, you know, in a bigger sense and what's their mission, what's their purpose, and how does WPS relate to that. So When we're talking about coming in and working with security cooperation, we came in and we designed a stand alone intro course on WPS with a focus on how it relates to security cooperation. And so when we offer these online kind of micro learning courses, We're always thinking about how it's relevant to your business and the topic in subject matter that's the most relevant to the work that you're doing. But we also provide more advanced certification on WPS, and that kind of moves away from asynchronous online micro learning. Into virtual and in person instructor led learning, where we can really do a big bigger deep dive into why WPS is important for your work. And so just those two topics that I mentioned, both the micro learning and the in person instruction, their standalone WPS focused courses or modules, but we can also and we do also provide WPS integration into do already existing training and certification programs. So if your company already has training that's required, you already have an existing certification program or something along that line. Our team comes in and can provide an analysis of that art that existing curriculum or training and identify where WPS fits best into it and is relevant and is not just relevant, but will help to advance that training and to make it even better. And so we really can provide those recommended inserts throughout the course, and we also can develop those recommendations. For example, our team recently integrated WPS into a military planning course And what we did is we went through the whole course and we inserted small but actually very significant injections of WPS throughout each module of the course where it was relevant, inappropriate, and and advanced the purpose of the course. And so by the end of the course, WPS was no longer just a standalone topic, but it was something that really made sense alongside the bigger topic that was being taught. And you can really see the value of that. So there's this option of, you know, standalone WPS, but also WPS integration in to already existing courses. And then as well, we have the ability to train the trainer so we can come in and if you already have instructors who are running the programs, the training that exists in your company, we have the ability to come in into help those that faculty or those instructors learn what WPS is, and then also learn how to teach it to the different levels that may be appropriate for your for for the client that we're working with. So I think that's just, you know, that's a lot of examples of of how our partnership with Country Intel has really advanced both Country Intel's work and also the council's work and the capabilities that we're able to offer to our clients.

Speaker 2:

That's great. Yes. And that ability to either develop or refine, I think, is incredibly helpful and can really find utility in in any any course or any training that may be necessary, so that that's great to hear. Right. I wonder if you

Speaker 4:

Yeah. You may you may have you may have some people in your company that don't need to really have a full in-depth, you know, specifically, you know, they're gonna be doing WPS work, but you wanna make sure that everybody in your company has a baseline understanding of what WPS is and that they're able to then go forward and determine in their own expertise. You know, that I think that's really important that that people have their own expertise in an area that, you know, we as WPS experts don't have that expertise. But if they get a basic WPS understanding, they're able to then take WPS and bring it into the areas where they're the experts. And I think that's where we really see a lot of magic happen. They're able to identify things because of the fact that they understand their area so well.

Speaker 2:

Right. Yes. That is -- that's incredibly important. And really takes away a lot of the barriers for it, including this sort of knowledge into existing frameworks. Because it it really can only help, like I said earlier, just just future proof your organization and equip them with the knowledge necessary to have better, more holistic understanding, as you all have mentioned earlier, of what's really going on around them and allows them to make future projections that are all inclusive and and really equip them to offer the best services possible and the best education possible. For their their own existing organizations. So so that's great. And so so how do we tailor this? To clients, you know, if we could just dig in a little bit deeper, you know, what what are the ways in which we can really help specify these these these learning modules, these, you know, trainings in a way that it it really is -- Mhmm.

Speaker 1:

--

Speaker 2:

something actionable that that clients can utilize.

Speaker 3:

Right. I mean, that's the so what. Right? I mean, how what does this do for me? And what can I do for it? Right? The agenda of promoting more peaceful, stable societies that that are good for American interests in American businesses. You know, we have a few hallmarks of the way we we work. And and the first and foremost is we have a kind of humble way of going into it by learning from the faculty to the senior stakeholders who approach us And that is we become students first. We need to understand whether it's that industry or that company or the client in our work with DOD. It was pretty diverse. We were not just doing training. We're also doing education, graduate level education. Coming up with a graduate level course that's really in-depth for instructors and government agencies to take But we are also doing scoping tools for international lawyers to go work with the partner nation lawyers. So we had to research, you know, what that country had ratified internationally, what their domestic laws were, etcetera, and come up with a scoping tool that was not just comprehensive from a the VPS standpoint. But short, I mean, you can only you only have so much time to engage your partners overseas. Right? And so it needs to be something concise and impactful. So we really developed an expertise in developing tools like that, but starts with that close working relationship and starts from listening to make sure that the product you deliver is a product that's gonna be really useful. The second hallmark of what we do, and I think this really makes the council stand out, is we really do align with the US law. We understand, you know, I worked at the UN for fourteen years. I understand I've advised UN diplomats, and so I'm very sensitive to other countries. But For businesses in the U. S. And for those contracting with the government, you really have to understand the U. S. Law, and then we do start there. We actually consulted on the U. S. Law, the twenty seventeen law, and then on the strategy and implementation plans. And we're now in the process of working We are part of civil society that is now consulting with the government on a new law. So we provide that kind of cutting edge and what's coming down the pike perspective to our clients. Understanding the international perspective is really important. All of us at the counselor, scholar practitioners, we're not just here to give you theories. Our principles, although those might be important to you, theories of change, etcetera. But we really want to see results on the ground. And we do engage on the ground. For example, we are involved in rebuilding schools right now in Uganda. The person who is our senior fellow who's on the ground doing that has been working in this space in the BPS for decades. She actually came over. We brought her over to to speak to the UN Security Council, and she's just been elected to parliament. I mean, we have we we punch really kind of above our weight for a small organization of of sneeze. But we we understand. We respect sovereignty. We understand the value of local partnerships and context. Right? It doesn't belong everywhere. As Grace said, it comes to creating curriculum, you know, we we show the client the place where this can really catalyze your work. We don't try to put it everywhere. Because it doesn't belong everywhere. And that leads me to the highest standards of scholarship. Right now, we're engaged in a book project, bringing together experts in the field of security cooperation to look at how women peace and security has leveraged their work on the ground, whether they're at a combatant command or in a country working with militarys or civil society. We are collecting this scholarship because we really do wanna show you evidence, right, of and how this can work and where it doesn't work. And so we bring that that level of scholarship to everything we do. And we do that through a broad network that we have in academia, civilian academia, professional military education, and international academia. Because it's really important some of the breakthroughs that we're making in women peace and security are coming from countries like Colombia that included women in a piece process that really made all the difference. And so we can share some of those lessons learned. And then really responsiveness to the policy and operational events. We we are national security experts as well. So we sort of see what's happening, we keep an eye on, and we're very informed of what's happening on the ground in the operational environment. And and so we can be responsive to that as well when we're making we're looking down the road or if I can use a Northeast example, skating to where we think the puck will be. Right? And our pedagogy are the way we do our certification and our learning facilitation is really interactive. I mean, we can use everything from tabletop exercises. We're gonna be integrating gaming. Into our learning. We have some exciting ideas planned for that as well. So there there are wonderful ways to make this interesting and fun. And collaborative. Collaborative across your time zones that you might work in, collaborative across, you know, you know, basically headquarters in different countries. So we also make it a lot of fun.

Speaker 2:

That's great. And you know, removing those barriers to inclusion, I think is crucial to help overall adoption and just spread the word of the importance of including WPS into into any sort of training that that may be necessary. And, you know, I just I just wanna sort of back up and and increase the the the scope here and just ask you both. I guess, I'll I'll throw it out to both of you. What are some of the best ways to get involved in promoting WPS if an industry or an individual? Really wants to take up the banner. How would you all recommend that we we go about doing that?

Speaker 3:

Well, I'll hop in and say, if you're listening to this podcast, you've already started. You've already taken the first step. You're learning about what it is, why it's important, and how it can really make your business a step ahead of the others. The next would be to get certified. We can help you do that. Learn how to get certified, basic understanding for your key staff. And then engage in ongoing training and events that can help connect you to other industry in this field. Great way to show the government that you're trying to engage even if it doesn't require you to have the certification. If you have it, it shows that you care and it might make the difference. Especially if you understand how to align with with US priorities and sort of be in the house.

Speaker 2:

Well, that is great to hear. And, yes, if you're listening to this, this is a great first step. You heard it first from Dr. Yoshihara. And just to conclude here, WPS is a really important issue that has a really significant impact on the world, both today and looking forward into the future, industry, government, and contractors, we all have a role to play in promoting WPS. And we at country Intel are committed to providing WPS training that's informative engaging and relevant to the needs of our clients. That's all for this week's show. Thank you to doctor Yoshihara, doctor Hoffman for joining us. The American Council for Women peace and security. Thank you so much for incredibly fruitful and and just really positive and and profitable, I should say, partnership. It it it really is central to to our offerings here at Country Intel, and and we couldn't be happier to have you as a partner.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. It's been terrific. Thank you so much, Spencer.

Speaker 4:

Yes. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 5:

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Speaker 2:

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Spencer Bentley

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