Mediators

Ayşe Betül Çelik is a full professor, teaching conflict analysis and resolution, and political science at Sabanci University in Istanbul. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 2002. She has been a visiting scholar in the American University (2009) and the University of Sydney (2013). Her work focuses on ethnicity, forced migration, reconciliation, civil society, and gender in peacebuilding and peacemaking. She is also trained in dialogue, UNSCR 1325 NAP writing, problem-solving workshops, negotiation, and conflict mapping. She served as a consultant to several civil society organizations on gender and peace, and is a founding member of Peace Foundation, and Center for Excellence for Women and Gender Studies at Sabancı University. She teaches conflict resolution, and gender equality to civil society, private companies, and public schools. As a founding member of the Turkish antenna of the MWMN, Prof. Çelik actively works for teaching gender-sensitive mediation, and organizes conflict resolution dialogue groups among diverse group of women in Turkey.

Dilara Gök is one of the founders of Conflictus Training and Consultancy. She has been working in the discrimination, conflict resolution, mediation and peacebuilding fields for almost 7 years with many national and international organizations such as GIZ, UNHCR, RET International and etc. in Turkey. Currently, she has developed training programs, new modules, approaches and practical solutions in the conflict resolution field by engaging with social and disadvantaged groups, as a trainer. Together with this, after the Syrian crisis, she has also been working on social cohesion by handling this issue under the umbrella of conflict resolution tools. In this context, she has developed and applied trainings by working with both local and international organizations in cities which have intense Syrian population. In addition to this, she had worked as a program coordinator of the Young Mediators Program which was implemented under the support of U.S. Embassy in Istanbul. Now, Dilara is one of the founding member of the Turkish Antenna of The MWMN. Also, since 2016, she has been working as victim-offender mediator in Istanbul Courthouse. She is also trained in Women in Conflict 1325 Fellowship Program. https://tr.linkedin.com/in/dilaragok

Edita Tahiri is a key founder and leader of the movement for independence of Kosovo. She was Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs for ten years during the hard times of Kosovo’s liberation (1990-2000), Minister of Dialogue, Minister of Public Administration, Peace Negotiator and Member of Parliament in five terms.

She has a long-standing experience in foreign policy and security, international relations, conflict resolution, international peace negotiations and post-conflict transitions. She is a distinguished peace negotiator and chief negotiator for Kosovo and the Balkan region with about 30 years’ experience. She is recognized as the only woman peace negotiator in the Balkans participating in the international peace processes such as the Rambouillet International Peace Conference on Kosovo (1999), Pre-Rambouillet Peace Negotiation (1998), London Conference on Disintegration of Former Yugoslavia (1992) and Chief Negotiator of Kosovo at the EU facilitated Dialogue on normalization of neighborly relations between Kosovo and Serbia (2011-2017). As the Chief Negotiator of Kosovo in the EU mediated peace talks with Serbia, she is the signatory of first ever-reached agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, after 20 years of peace talks.

She is dedicated to empowerment of women and WPS agenda and has been serving as Chair of the Regional Women’s Lobby in South East Europe for the past 14 years. She is a member of the Women Waging Peace Network.
She is a graduate of Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government with a Master’s Degree in Public Administration with a major in international relations. She holds a PhD in Political Sciences focused in the international state-building from Prishtina University in cooperation with SAIS Johns Hopkins University. She is a Fulbright Scholar and a graduate of George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.

Maria Hadjipavlou, is a retired Associate Professor from the University of Cyprus. She holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Change from Boston University, was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University and member of its International Conflict Analysis and Resolution Program. She cofounded the Center on International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University. She published widely on gender related issues, conflict resolution and peacebuilding on which she also coordinated a number of research projects and is often invited to universities and international fora to share her experience. She conducts training in conflict resolution and gender awareness building especially in conflict situations including for UNFPA and has trained women in several countries. She is currently working on a book on 40 years of peace engagement work in Cyprus. Her book Women and Change in Cyprus: Feminisms, Gender and Conflict (I.B.Tauris, 2010) has become a reference book. As an activist, she was a founding member and president of the NGO “Cyprus Peace Center”; of “Hands Across the Divide”; and a co-founder of the Cyprus Academic Dialogue and the “Gender Advisory Team” working exclusively on implementing and integrating UNSC Resolution 1325 in the Cypriot negotiations. In 2015, she was appointed member of the Technical Committee on Gender Equality advising peace negotiators on gender equality provisions. She has been a founding member of the MWMN because she strongly believes that women’s meaningful participation in peace processes and post conflict peace building is not only a democratic right but has also proven to contribute to sustainable peace and gender equality efforts. She has been instrumental in establishing the MWMN/Cyprus Antenna in 2019.

Pnina Sharvit Baruch is a senior research fellow and the head of the program on law and national security at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). She retired from the Israel Defense Forces in 2009 with the rank of Colonel after twenty years in the International Law Department, heading the Department from 2003. In this capacity she was responsible for advising the government on issues relating to international law. During the years 1993-2006, Pnina served as a legal advisor and senior member of Israel’s delegations to the negotiations with the Palestinians. In 2000, she also participated in the negotiations with Syria as the legal advisor of the security committee. After 2009 Pnina taught courses on public international law and on the legal aspects of the Israel – Arab conflict in the law faculty of the Tel-Aviv University. In recent years she has participated in several track II negotiations with Palestinian counterparts. Pnina is an active member of Forum Dvorah – Women in Foreign Policy and National Security and represents the Forum in NATO’s Civil Society Advisory Panel on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). She is vice president of the international association of Jewish lawyers and jurists (IJL) and a member of the managing board of the Israeli section of the International Women Forum (IWF). She joined the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network to work together towards the wider inclusion of women in negotiations in the region.

Salwa Sahloul is Head of Mission in the Office of the Head of Government since April 2019.
After graduating from the Military Academy where she studied administration and obtained a master’s degree, she worked in the Ministry of National Defence as an administrative officer for 15 years and had accomplished many missions of mediation and conflict resolution in the fieldwork.

In 2014, she was appointed adviser to the Minister of Women, Family and childhood. In 2016, she became an international coach and expert on “Women, Peace and Security” after a long process training with UN Women Egypt, The Arab League.
In 2017, she participated with the national high-level committee in the elaboration of the National Action Plan of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 as the head of the protection pillar.
During the first General Assembly of the African Union’s Femwise-Africa Network, Salwa was chosen among the first 50 African mediators to participate in mediation and prevention of conflict missions in the African continent.

In June 2018 she was promoted to the rank of Major and obtained the military decoration.
In September 2019 during the 47th General Assembly of the United Nations in New-York she was selected among the first Women Mediators to launch “The Global Alliance of Regional Networks of Women Mediators”.