As the 1325 agenda is now more vigorously being taken up by activists, the project on Women, Peace and Security will develop into a two–pronged approach: facilitating women's solidarity around issues through GAT, and developing a specific new project on the Human Security angle of the Cyprus negotiations.
Emphasis will be specifically placed on the second angle, which will seek to identify aspects of the security question which are specifically relevant to women. This will link existing knowledge on the subject from both the international and local context and input from grassroots activities such as focus groups with women on the ground
Under the project, GAT held meetings to plan focus group events in areas including cities other than the capital Nicosia. It was envisioned that in these events women will be asked to share knowledge about parameters of security and more importantly views about their individual priorities and fears regarding security. This will cover both the existing political situation as well as an envisioned post-settlement situation. Insights from these meetings were shared with PCC's security project.
The focus groups events were not held in 2017, due to the dramatic developments in the negotiation process, which would have significantly skewed any discussion and follow-up results. Instead, time was spent collecting background data on the developments on the ground, as well as on the current academic debates on the issue. The results were twofold. The first was a project funding bid to the MFA for a larger-scale project on women's perspectives through focus group exchanges, to be carried out during the calmer period following elections on both sides in 2018. This was also discussed in meetings with other foreign diplomats in the country, who expressed interest in supporting events around the focus groups. Further thinking was done to integrate part of this project into the project on Linkages, so as to multiply its effect. The second output was two academic publications, to appear in 2018, a co-authored chapter and a journal article.
