Ivanka Trump Announces Another Global Women's Initiative

The White House announced a new initiative aimed at giving women more seats at the table in global peace efforts on Tuesday, and White House senior advisor Ivanka Trump has been a key player in the effort. The president’s oldest daughter went to Capitol Hill to push forward the initiative, called the National Strategy on Women, Peace, and Security.

She also took part in a roundtable discussion with a bipartisan group of lawmakers — including Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Republicans Sen. Jim Risch, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito — about the plan. Ivanka, whose advisor role includes advocating for women and families, said in an interview with Cheddar, "We're now the first country in the world that requires women to be at the table when negotiating peace agreements and mediations."

In a statement, Ivanka said that the initiative “recognizes that women’s participation and empowerment are essential to good defense policy, conflict resolution, and post-conflict peace-building efforts.”

“The prioritization of women across the United States’ security structures and diplomatic efforts is fundamental to preventing conflict and forging a durable peace worldwide,” Sen. Shaheen said in the statement. “We need female representation on the world stage to accurately reflect the makeup of communities directly impacted by violence and armed conflict.”

The strategy will be to push agencies and federal departments that deal with issues surrounding foreign policy and international aid to include more input from women in disaster recovery and global peace efforts. The plan follows the 2017 Women, Peace, and Security Act, authored by Sen. Shaheen, which sought to include more women in international conflict resolution, and was signed into law by President Trump in October 2017.

Ivanka has made women's global empowerment one of her major issues throughout her tenure at the White House, launching the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative in February, aiming to help 50 million women in developing countries get ahead economically by 2025.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration's "global gag rule," a.k.a. anti-abortion restrictions on U.S. federal aid funding, have already put women's lives in Africa and South Asia in danger, according to a new report from the International Women’s Health Coalition.