2022 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Glass: The Award for Change

Although Lebanese women are empowered, educated, and fit to run for political office and make a difference, they have almost never played an intrinsic role in any political and national peace-building dialogues, and have continuously been marginalized and dismissed when it comes to state-level decision making. Worse, the political establishment has been perpetuating the status quo through a traditional election process allowing traditional male political figures to remain in power for years while women were| “allowed” to lead on secondary positions only. Within this context, and in light of the upcoming parliamentary elections, preceding the election of a new president in Lebanon, UN Women wanted to shed light on this to change the narrative and reject timeworn gender stereotypes deeming women unfit to occupy KEY political roles.

Background

For years, the fate of Lebanon and its people has rested in the hands of half of the population: men. For years, women were missing from Lebanon’s political scene. And for over 40 years, so-called national dialogues and peace agreements were carried out by one gender: men. When 50% of the Lebanese population is not given a seat at the table, the decision-making processes put in place cannot and will not represent all the Lebanese society. And the dialogue will be missing. Through this campaign, UN Women Lebanon aimed to raise awareness on the importance of women’s engagement in peace and security deliberations in Lebanon. The idea was to pave the way to ensure that women are well represented in the upcoming peace-building conversations as equal participation is directly linked to more durable solutions and sustainable outcomes.

Describe the cultural / social / political climate in your region and the significance of your campaign within this context

Lebanon’s National Action Plan on UNSCR 1325 that was approved by the government on Women, Peace and Security calls for women to participate in decision-making processes at the local and national levels in government, parliament, municipal councils, and other decision-making bodies across all sectors. While women in Lebanon have been active in the civil society, organized protests and were most prominent in the anti-establishment movements in 2015 and 2019, they were constantly excluded from Lebanon’s key peace dialogues with no access to state-level decision making. In the 2018 parliamentary elections, only six out of the 86 women who had registered to run won a seat, out of 128 members of parliament. When a new government was formed in September 2021, out of a record 24 ministers, only one woman was picked. Studies have shown that peace agreements are 64% less likely to fail and 20% more likely to last upwards of 2 years when women participate in the decision-making process. These statistics present many possibilities, of which Lebanon is in dire need of. It is about time for their role to be recognized and their active participation ensured in peacebuilding negotiations, especially at this critical time for Lebanon.

Describe the creative idea

o Women make up 50% of the population in Lebanon. o Yet, women have 0% participation in key decision-making o With 50% of the population absent from the dialogue, the conversation is missing. Our idea: Remove 50 % of the alphabets' letters, to create a dysfunctional alphabet and showcase the dysfunctional dialogue. The Missing Peace campaign wants to show what missing peace dialogues look like. It’s about time to complete #TheMissingPeace.

Describe the strategy

Through our strategic partnership with Twitter MENA, leading broadcast corporation LBCI and local newspaper Annahar, and for 1 day, we launched a mega stunt of dysfunctional news removing 50% of the letters from the online, broadcast, and print communication coming out of the country. We created the biggest media wall in the communication landscape of Lebanon and triggered the creation of a new dialogue by showcasing a dysfunctional one. This organic campaign rests on a meticulously planned pre-seeding strategy, leveraging the engagement of media partners and KOLs to both spread the word and direct traffic to the campaign microsite. We used Twitter platform as the main springboard and amplified the stunt on broadcast and print media bridging the online and offline worlds.

Describe the execution

On November 15 2021, Lebanese people woke up to a different media landscape. A special edition of Annahar circulated across the country with the front, back and 3 other pages (out of 12) missing half their letters. On Twitter, and throughout the day, news channels, NGOs, diplomats, and influencers were tweeting in gibberish using the hashtags #TheMissingPeace and مش_حرف_ناقص# for a first-hand experience on what a dysfunctional dialogue is. The UN Women tweet had 50% of its letters missing, prompting people to unlock the full letters upon liking or retweeting it or using the microsite to create their own dysfunctional tweets. Later in the evening, LBCI opened its prime- time news bulletin with a broken alphabet introduction dedicating 20 minutes to our topic. Targeted billboards were disseminated in key locations next to Lebanese governmental institutions to walk the talk in addition to conducting polls and discussion forums on Twitter Spaces.

Describe the results / impact

Our 1-day campaign tackling a “niche” topic: TRENDED ORGANICALLY #1 FOR 3 DAYS despite a cluster of bad news garnering 14.7 interactions from +61 countries • +160 prominent celebrities/influencers/public figures engaged with our Tweet including Elissa (15.7M), Maya Diab (1.5M) and Nadine Labaki (761K) • UN Women Lebanon Twitter’s mentions jumped from 90 to 1000/weekly (+1036%) The conversation around women’s rights in Lebanon leveled up by 325% the week of the campaign finally putting women at the front seat of public debate In one day in a country of 6M: - +693M Total Impressions including a reach of 93.1M - 650K engagements - 68% of the yearly UN Women Lebanon mentions on Twitter +$658K in earned media: • Annahar: +500K website visits and 80,000 print impressions • LBC: +2.2M views on prime-time segment with 20 minutes free airtime -International coverage, including BBC and Period. Studio