Prof. Miriam Coronel-Ferrer at the Nepal Dialogues Summit 2023

The Nepal Dialogues Summit of 2023 is honored to share that Ramon Magsaysay Award Winner and peacebuilder Miriam Coronel-Ferrer will be the main guest of the event. She will be speaking about her experiences of peace negotiations and dialogue from wealth of experience she brings from the Philippines and around.

About Miriam Coronel-Ferrer

A peace negotiator in the Philippines, Miriam Coronel-Ferrer has been changing this landscape. Her impassioned engagement in political issues started in the late 1970s, when, as a student activist, she joined the resistance against martial rule. After the 1986 People Power Revolution, Coronel-Ferrer felt the need to find peaceful resolutions to the many armed conflicts that continued to divide the country. With other women peacebuilders, Coronel-Ferrer initiated the drafting of the Philippines’ first National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security which was eventually adopted by the government in 2010 as part of its commitment to the UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

In the latter part of 2012, Coronel-Ferrer became the Chairperson for the Philippine Government’s Peace Panel tasked to negotiate with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was signed in 2014 by the Philippine government and MILF. Coronel-Ferrer sees this achievement more modestly: “There is no perfect agreement, but we make it more imperfect by leaving women out of the process.” In 2020, Coronel-Ferrer co-founded the Southeast Asian Women Peace Mediators, a pioneering group of women engaged in convening safe spaces for dialogues and supporting mediation initiatives in countries like Myanmar and Afghanistan. 

She was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2023 for her contributions in dialogues and peacebuilding. Source: https://www.rmaward.asia/awardee/miriam-coronel-ferrer