Muna Luqman

Vision and Practice for Inclusive, Holistic Leadership

 
 

As we witness and experience the complexities, depths, injustices, and ripple effects of conflicts around the world today, Euphrates raises vital questions: what is true leadership and who is modeling it? What role does community play in enabling humanity to navigate these troubled waters? How do we practice peace personally, and together, to end violence in all its forms?

This year, to explore and make discoveries towards these questions, we turn to lifetime peace activist, advocate, and peace leader Muna Luqman. She actualizes inclusive, women-led, holistic, and grounded leadership. She centers community in a way that enables their own wisdom, relationships, and resources to guide and create the social change they desire. She practices self-care and healing to better work with others to end violence in a country steeped in violent war. 

We can no longer address conflict in silos and expect sustainable transformation. We need visionaries and leaders who recognize the deep interconnectedness of root causes of conflict, who approach solutions to conflict holistically, and who prioritize community-created possibilities and strategies. Muna Luqman embodies this peace leadership practice; and in a context that devalues women and is fraught with conflict, her vision to rise above is an inspiration.

 

Lifetime Peace Activist, Advocate, and Leader

Hailing from South Yemen, Muna Luqman is a peace activist and advocate for human rights. Her work began in corporate business, and after a personal accident and war erupted in Yemen, “only the women were left,” and Muna’s path evolved to begin her peace leader journey. Through her relationships between the humanitarian sector, military, and government, Muna has worked to support the front lines in Yemen.

Muna aided in settling conflicts between warring communities, and negotiated with armed groups over child hostages. Along with other women peace builders, Muna has mediated with local tribes to release 600 detainees when UN negotiations failed. Working with the mothers of abductees and an international campaign to free prisoners, Muna helped release 450 abductees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, Muna serves as the co-founder of the Women's Solidarity Network, Chairperson of the Yemeni foundation Food For Humanity, and member of the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership. Understanding the necessity of having women at the negotiating and decision-making tables for peace, she advocates for peace and women’s rights in Yemen. She has briefed the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Council and the Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen. “I wish to stop the war in Yemen. This led me to brief the UN Security Council and human rights advocacy. I was trying to give the real story of the war.”

“Inclusion of women isn’t about equality–it’s about giving voice to survivors, the youth, the women, the dire needs of the Yemeni people.”
 

Practicing and Uplifting a Holistic Approach for Peace

Peace leadership efforts need to employ systems approaches, actively bridging other sectors to peacebuilding and highlighting how imperative it is to integrate peace practice across fields. Muna both deeply understands and lives this principle, as her visionary work bridges peacebuilding, climate change, and women’s inclusion, all through a community-centered lens. She profoundly models peace leadership and how individuals and communities can lead sustainable transformation. 

Muna’s holistic approach and vision began with access to one lifeline resource: water. In violent, protracted conflict, access to essential, everyday resources - such as water - can be scarce. “Many armed conflicts are just about resources. People cannot get the resources.” Muna has forged pathways to make water, food, and healthcare available and accessible. She worked at the frontlines to de-escalate community tension around access to water, and helped build the infrastructure and systems to increase access. 

However, the roots of conflict and violence run deep and multifaceted. Her community had a water station set up, “but the people continued to fight.” Communities also suffered from challenges and impact of child marriage, low income, stimulant and narcotic sales, and more. “Water has always been my focus, but we have so many issues. How can we be holistic in humanitarian work?” Muna witnesses and experiences how the systems are not working as is, and seeks to make new sustainable models with more impact on the ground, addressing not just one issue, but holding them all in tandem and envisioning transformative solutions. “I see all the connections…So water, peacebuilding, and women are my main focuses - also youth.”

Practicing a holistic and interconnected approach to transforming conflict, Muna sees possibility, emergence, and generative solutions for communities, where others see despair.

 

Centering Community, Valuing Humanity

“I gain my strength from the people, especially the children that look up to us in search of peace.”

To effect systems change, we must begin with healing, strengthening, and loving our communities. This work requires recognizing and valuing the humanity and dignity of each individual, and following the leadership of the community to uplift their own solutions. “The drivers of conflict aren’t analyzed deeply. It’s always a top down approach. I’m calling for a bottom up approach. The UN peace agreement is talking about something different than what’s going on on the ground. I try water, I try all angles. Actors on the ground try to bring solutions. I need to strategize in a way where the people on the ground get heard - women mediators, youth mediators.” 

Muna’s call for holistic, bottom-up approaches creates the space needed for marginalized and oppressed voices to be heard, and for their leadership to be invited and followed. Her work in community has enabled the rehabilitation of schools, development of greenhouse projects to generate income, and support of water mediators to address conflict. Investing in these “smaller” projects has a slow, steady, and profound healing impact – led by and for communities. 

“It wasn’t about food or humanitarian aid, it’s about valuing humanity. I was seeing people becoming more entrenched in violence everyday. By restoring their feeling of humanity, we could bring people together…I think my belief in humanity is that we all have this soft spot inside of us, and I look for how we can bring it out in people.”

 

Prioritizing Personal Peace and Radical Self-Care

At the foundation of peace leadership lies our personal peace practice. We honor ourselves and personal needs, striving to understand and care for ourselves so we can better understand and care for others. In the practice of peace leadership, when we practice personal peace, we carry those practices and inner awareness into all we do. 


After expending so much of herself on the survival and well-being of others during war, Muna realized the need for prioritizing her own care to be able to sustain this important work. “...suddenly I became the spokesperson for Yemen. Everyone was trying to do something.I was under so much pressure that I completely forgot about myself. This year I’m on a self-care journey.” She carries her holistic approach into her self-care practice. She finds time to focus on her health - going to the gym and focusing on nutrition. She’s learning to set boundaries, enabling more of a ‘yes’ to herself. Muna recognizes that in helping herself, she is helping her fellow peacebuilders. “I am now stronger and have energy to do my work…I’m really grateful for this new journey.” Her practice serves as a reflection of peace leadership in action.

 

A Persistent and Everlasting Vision

For her safety, Muna has relocated residence outside of Yemen yet returns often. However, remote work has not deterred her commitment or ability to actualize her vision for peace in Yemen. 

She has used her time throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and remote connection to Yemen to work on implementing projects directly. Supported by the Yemeni women’s diaspora Muna has continued her community work on water, women, and humanitarian aid. “My organization ended up helping 120,000 families with fresh water.” 

Muna’s profound, grounded, and transformative vision persists. Her work uplifts the intricate and interconnected grassroots social change that happens in local communities, and demonstrates the powerful change that can ripple towards systems change when we ensure communities are funded, supported, and heard.