A bright day in Kigali, a vibrant event, a powerful networking between valuable practitioners’ women in the international arbitration landscape, that is how we can describe what happen in Kigali on 4 June 2025.

As one of the side events of the main ICCA KIAC Conference 2025 the network event put together about thirty women from a variety of backgrounds and practices. The event was organised in the form of a rotation, allowing one speaker to take the floor, punctuated by a twenty-minute exchange between the women before the next speaker.

The networking was supervised by PCA's Lise Boseman. The first speaker was Funke Adekoya SAN, who emphasised the central role of female practitioners in the world of dispute resolution. Following Funke ADEKOYA, the floor was given to ERA Pledge, represented for the occasion by Sylvia Noury and Mercy Okiro of the ERA Pledge Africa Sub Committee. Sylvia recalled that the pledge was set up in 2015, to increase, on an equal opportunity basis, the number of women appointed as arbitrators to achieve a fair representation as soon practically possible, with the ultimate goal of full parity. Nearly 10 years later, the results of this initiative are visible, with most arbitration institutions having made the appointment of women a priority policy, in order to increase the appointment of women, not in their capacity as “women”, but because they are competent.

After a round of exchanges, the floor was given to ArbitralWomen. The ArbitralWomen representative of the day, author of this report, took the floor to recall the origins of ArbitralWomen: a meeting held in Paris thirty years ago, at which only two women were represented. When asked why they didn't invite women, they replied that there weren't any in the field! The two women present that day therefore decided to rally female practitioners in the field of Dispute resolution and international arbitration, so that their skills would be recognised in the industry. Since then, this has been ArbitralWomen's challenge: to unite and promote women Dispute Resolution Practitioners from around the world.

Sylvie BEBOHI EBONGO, supported by Mercy Okiro, also a member of ArbitralWomen, encouraged women to join ArbitralWomen to benefit from an exceptional platform, which will showcase them by sharing their professional experiences, their latest achievements, promote their events, publish their articles, connect them to each other and match them up with each other.

One major point Sylvie stressed during the presentation, designed to encourage African practitioners in particular to join, is that during this year 2025, ArbitralWomen fees will be adapted per jurisdiction to increase outreach to such regions especially Africa, Middle East, Asia and Latin-America. Sylvie also stressed the need to break down the language barrier which, like the gender issue for which ArbitralWomen campaigns, is necessary to increase the visibility of women in the Dispute Resolution landscape.

Submitted by ArbitralWomen member Sylvie Bebohi Ebongo