Outcome 2: Deepening Political Advocacy
In 2025, Nobel Women’s Initiative strengthened its global advocacy to ensure that feminist perspectives and the voices of women on the frontlines of conflict and repression shape international policy and decision-making. At a time when dominant narratives continue to prioritize state security and militarized responses, NWI worked to shift discourse by amplifying the leadership, analysis, and demands of women activists and Nobel laureates in key global forums. Through strategic engagement in high-level spaces and sustained public advocacy, NWI contributed to advancing people-centered approaches to peace, justice, and accountability, while ensuring that the realities and priorities of those most affected by conflict remain visible and influential.
Delegation: Palestinian Women’s Resistance, Resilience and Rights
In 2025, Nobel Women’s Initiative advanced women’s influence in political and policy spaces through its delegation Palestinian Women’s Resistance, Resilience and Rights, convened in the West Bank and Jordan. The delegation was organized in response to the escalating crisis in Gaza and the West Bank, and the persistent exclusion of Palestinian women from political and peace processes, despite their central role in responding to and resisting these conditions. Led by Nobel Peace Prize laureates Tawakkol Karman (Yemen), Dr. Shirin Ebadi (Iran), and Jody Williams (USA), the delegation brought together Palestinian feminist leaders, women human rights defenders, and international partners to ensure that women’s lived realities, political analysis, and demands were centered within international advocacy and decision-making spaces. Symbolically, the delegation’s ability to enter occupied Palestinian territory at a moment of severe restriction and heightened risk carried particular significance, deepening NWI’s credibility with Palestinian partners and civil society by demonstrating concrete solidarity and presence.
Some photos from our delegation in West Bank and Jordan. Click here to view more. Photos taken by Mariam Shahin and Ayman Abu Ramouz. Rights owned by NWI.
During the delegation laureates Jody Williams, Tawakkol Karman and Shirin Ebadi engaged directly with women living under occupation and in displacement. In one visit to a women’s center in a refugee camp, Jody Williams asked a simple but powerful question: “Do you ever get angry?” The silence that followed spoke volumes, capturing the weight of lived experience, and the unspoken realities that often go unheard in formal policy spaces. Moments like these grounded the delegation’s advocacy in human experience, reinforcing the urgency of centering women’s voices in peace and political processes.
Over the course of one week, the delegation engaged directly with a range of decision-makers and influential actors, including UN agencies such as UNRWA, diplomatic representatives, and high-level political figures, including an audience at Basman Palace. These engagements created rare and direct opportunities for Palestinian women to articulate their priorities on protection, accountability, and a just and lasting peace, while also shaping the understanding of international stakeholders. By grounding these exchanges in first-hand testimonies and feminist political analysis, the delegation strengthened the recognition of women not as victims of conflict, but as leaders, analysts, and agents of change whose perspectives are essential to effective policy responses.
The delegation contributed to more coordinated and visible feminist advocacy at a critical political moment. It amplified clear and unified calls for a permanent ceasefire, an end to the occupation, an arms embargo, and full accountability for violations of international law. The delegation also intentionally bridged grassroots realities with international policy spaces, including through targeted diplomatic convenings and public engagements that brought women’s voices directly into dialogue with policymakers.
Its impact extended beyond the delegation itself through sustained advocacy and communications efforts. The report Sumoud: Palestinian Women’s Resistance, Resilience and Rights, was used as an ongoing advocacy tool with policymakers, partners, and international organizations, including distribution at key moments such as the United Nations General Assembly.
Together, these efforts contributed to strengthening the visibility, legitimacy, and uptake of Palestinian women’s priorities within international policy discussions, reinforcing the central role of women in shaping pathways toward justice, accountability, and peace.
Advocating for a People-Centered Peace Process in Ukraine
In 2025, Nobel Women’s Initiative planned to convene a delegation to Ukraine to support and amplify the leadership of women activists working in the context of Russia’s ongoing war of aggression, with a focus on advancing a people-centered approach to peace that reflects the needs and realities of those most affected. Due to intensified Russian attacks and a deteriorating security situation, the delegation was cancelled, prioritizing the safety of participants and partners.
Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Rome. Photos taken by Maria Butler. Rights owned by NWI.
NWI continued to advocate for a people-centered approach to peace through public statements. NWI also supported the leadership of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk, including her participation in the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome, where she emphasized that sustainable peace must be rooted in the experiences of people living through war, and that recovery efforts must center human rights and accountability.
In parallel, NWI supported communications efforts to amplify these perspectives globally, including facilitating an op-ed by Oleksandra Matviichuk in Project Syndicate, which underscored the need for peace processes to address occupation, atrocities, and justice. Together, these efforts contributed to advancing a more grounded and people-centered discourse on peace in Ukraine.
Global Advocacy
Nobel Women’s Initiative strengthened its influence in global policy spaces through sustained advocacy across key international forums and platforms. In a context of escalating conflict and backlash against women’s rights, NWI and laureates worked to ensure that feminist analysis and the priorities of women activists remained visible, credible, and engaged within high-level decision-making spaces.
During the United Nations General Assembly in New York NWI co-hosted and took part in several key events:
- It’s HER Turn: Tracking Member States’ Commitments on Selecting a Woman Secretary-General of the United Nations, co-hosted with the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders
- A Global Convening: Everyday Authoritarianism and Human Rights: Comparative and Transnational Lessons, led by CUNY’s Institute of Gender, Law and Transformative Peace
- Annual Symposium on Women’s Leadership for International Peace and Security, co-hosted with the International Peace Institute
The visibility of feminist leadership was further amplified through high-profile interventions, including Maria Ressa opening the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly and Tawakkol Karman participating in high-level discussions at UN Headquarters.
NWI extended this advocacy across other major international platforms, including the Munich Security Conference and Geneva Peace Week. In these spaces, NWI brought feminist perspectives into global peace and security debates, challenging dominant narratives centered on militarization and state security, and advancing people-centered, feminist approaches to peace, justice, and accountability.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, NWI staff, and Mesoamerican activists at Geneva Peace Week 2025. Photo taken by Irina Popa. Rights owned by NWI.
NWI also brought feminist advocacy into regional policy and movement spaces through participation in the 19th International Conference on “The European Union, Turkey, the Middle East and the Kurds” and the International Conference on Peace and Democratic Society in Istanbul. These engagements created opportunities to connect laureate leadership with regional debates on democracy, peace, accountability, and self-determination.
NWI continued to advocate for the full and unconditional release of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who spent most of 2025 on temporary medical release but was detained again in December 2025. Speaking from Iran during the temporary release, Narges Mohammadi shared the resilience of women political prisoners in Iran, highlighting acts of resistance that persist even under extreme conditions. In Geneva, Shirin Ebadi echoed her messages and addressed the ongoing repression in Iran, underscoring the limits of reform in the face of entrenched power, while continuing to advocate for justice and accountability.
Nobel Peace Prize laureates Jody Williams, Leymah Gbowee, Oleksandra Matviichuk and Shirin Ebadi demand the release of Narges Mohammadi.
Throughout the year, NWI and laureates engaged in sustained advocacy through public statements, media engagement, and strategic communications, responding to urgent and evolving crises. This included drawing attention to the escalating humanitarian crisis in Sudan, where ongoing conflict has led to widespread displacement and heightened risks of gender-based violence; amplifying calls for accountability in Iran amid continued repression of pro-democracy movements, particularly targeting women and youth; and consistently denouncing the systematic erasure of women’s rights in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. NWI also sustained advocacy on the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, calling for greater international attention to displacement, protection of civilians, accountability for armed actors, and the meaningful inclusion of women and young women in peace processes. NWI also deepened its advocacy on gender apartheid, calling for stronger international legal recognition of gender-based systems of oppression and accountability for those who enforce them.
Across these contexts, NWI maintained clear and coordinated calls for peace, women’s inclusion, accountability, and the protection of fundamental rights.