One such leader and pioneer is Euphrasie Yao from Côte d'Ivoire, former Minister of Gender Equality 2016-2017, and currently the gender equality advisor to the Prime Minister. Yao is considered the very gender architect in the country and has been a driving force through several administrations in pushing gender equality into the state and governance. It has also yielded results as Côte d'Ivoire is now at the top in Africa on SIGI. Yao is the founder of Crea-Paix (Make-Peace) and the head of the competence network for women (COCOFCI), where women are working in their communities to prevent conflict, negotiating for reconciliation, and building peace.

Antoinette Botti is the Norwegian honorary consul to Côte d'Ivoire and co-founder of the Pan African Women Association in Norway. She returned to Côte d'Ivoire to make her life as an entrepreneur, and diaspora member of the competence network for women, COCOFCI.

Siri Aas Rustad is a Research Director and Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Her research interests are conflict trends and dynamics, conflict related to natural resources and conflict, ceasefires, human consequences of conflict, particularly for women and children, and the geography of conflict. Rustad also leads the work on the Women Peace and Security report at PRIO.

Olga Abilova is a conflict resolution practitioner with over a decade of experience working across Africa and the Middle East. She has worked with UN peacekeeping missions in Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan, focusing on civilian protection and inclusive political processes. In her current role with the Norwegian Center for Conflict Resolution (NOREF), she advises on peace negotiations in the Middle East, with a particular focus on integrating gender perspectives into dialogue processes.

Moderator for this conversation will be Guri Charlotte Wiggen, freelance journalist and author. See less