Gender equality is a key indicator in assessing a country’s ability to emerge from conflict and sustain peace. Whether a country is well placed to sustain peace is closely related to the status of women in society. Therefore, women’s roles in peace and security, through participation in conflict-prevention efforts, political processes and the security sector, as well as their perceptions of their own security, are essential contributors to a long-term and sustainable peace. This is particularly the case in conflict-affected communities when a peace operation is preparing to drawdown and transition. Peace operations are expected to put in place mechanisms and reforms to ensure that women’s peace and security is promoted. This is grounded in the overarching goal of gender equality and the four pillars of the WPS Agenda as mandated by successive UN Security Council resolutions, beginning with Resolution 1325 in 2000.[1] Broadly speaking, the four pillars of the WPS Agenda refer to (a) women’s participation at all levels of decision making in peacebuilding; (b) prevention of conflict and all forms of violence against women; (c) protection of women and girls and their rights; and (d) gender responsive relief and recovery.

Key UN Policies & Guidance

UN Policy on Gender Responsive United Nations Peacekeeping Operations

Mainstreaming a gender perspective is also essential to ensuring that the mission and national authorities are responding to the needs of women in particular. Gender mainstreaming means that, in all mission planning, implementation and evaluation, the MLT should consider, and report on, how activities, processes and procedures contribute to reducing inequality between men and women. It is also important to ensure that the approach advocated by the MLT is culturally sensitive to the wider social context in which the mission operations. The MLT has a clear responsibility to incorporate a gender-sensitive approach into all mission activities and policies, and to set standards and encourage actions that demonstrate and promote gender balance and mainstreaming across all mission components (see 2.2 Promoting Integrated Planning and Operations).

The MLT should establish clear goals and ensure sufficient resources to facilitate gender mainstreaming within mission budgets. It should review and monitor progress on compliance with the policy on gender equality through regular meetings designed specifically for this purpose. The MLT should consult and make effective use of gender advisers and encourage other components to do the same.

6.2.1 Operational activities

The key operational activities by the mission to support this output include:

  • Undertaking gender analyses that include the gathering of data disaggregated by sex and age, and ensuring that these are integrated in the peace and conflict analysis as well as strategic and operational plans.
  • Establishing monitoring and reporting systems on WPS to track progress and ensure accountability.
  • Advocating with national authorities to promote equal opportunity in relation to women’s participation in electoral processes as candidates, and in registration and voting processes.
  • Enabling the active, equal and meaningful participation of women in dialogues and peace processes (both formal and informal) and negotiations.

6.2.2 Benchmarks

Short-term

  • Gender advisers are deployed to the mission and have regular access to MLT to discuss needs.
  • Gender mapping to identify women’s representation within the community undertaken.
  • Discussions held with national partners on women’s participation in political processes and national institutions.
  • Women serving in military, police and civilian components, and female-engagement teams enabled, where applicable.
  • The needs of the population in terms of protection, particularly from SGBV, have been assessed and a protection strategy developed and operationalized.
  • Monitoring and evaluation frameworks established to track progress on UN initiatives related to women’s participation in local security forces, the judicial sector and political processes.
  • Gender responsive interventions for DDR programmes that include the sustainable integration of women ex-combatants have been developed.

Medium-term

  • Targets and recruitment programmes put in place for women to participate in the security sector.
  • Dedicated capacities in national security structures to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence established.
  • Rights and well-being of women and girls in corrections institutions safeguarded.
  • Women ex-combatants participate in community violence- reduction projects and other capacity-building initiatives to promote social cohesion.
  • Gender-responsive electoral laws and equal opportunities for women to participate as candidates, elections officials and monitors legislated for.
  • Capacity-building programmes for women running for public office and public-awareness campaigns on women’s political participation implemented.

Long-term

  • Government institutions engage regularly and meaningfully with women’s civil society groups.
  • Women participate fully and equally in electoral and political processes.
  • Women’s rights and protections included in reform of national and local governance structures.
  • Gender-sensitive national security policies by national authorities developed and budgeted for.
  • Laws and policies to prosecute perpetrators of SGBV enacted.
  • Women participate in, and have access to equal opportunities within, the local security sector.

6.2.3 Responsibilities and coordination

While ensuring that women’s peace and security is promoted is a shared responsibility across the mission for all personnel, the MLT has a particularly important role in setting the tone when it comes to women, peace and security. It should ensure that the mission is making every effort to follow and implement the relevant UN Security Council resolutions on WPS, which includes actions by the mission to support women’s meaningful participation and empowerment, uphold women’s rights, protect women and girls, and mainstream gender into the different lines of work of the mission.

The MLT should draw on the advice and expertise of gender advisers (both civilian and military) throughout the mission in different functional areas to advance gender equality and the WPS mandates and assist the senior leadership in monitoring progress and enhancing accountability across the mission. This should include coordination with the UNCT and UN Women as soon as drawdown and transition is envisaged, to ensure that any efforts by the mission are sustainable.

6.2.4 Resources

Efforts to sustain women’s engagement in peace and security will also require the commitment and engagement of national and local institutions, as well as civil society. The MLT should ensure that as per the 2019 policy on gender-responsive peacekeeping operations, quick- impact projects apply a gender analysis as part of project selection, monitoring and evaluation, and that at least 15 per cent of funding is for projects that support gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Similar engagement should also take place with donor countries, in coordination with the national authorities and the UNCT, to ensure that a gender analysis is included in and funded for capacity-building projects.

6.2.5 Challenges and risks

  • Efforts to pursue the WPS Agenda in the mission may not be viewed as a priority by all stakeholders, and there may be pressure to prioritize other issues in a budget-constrained environment.
  • Women’s protection needs and gender analyses may be overlooked in crisis situations.
  • Although women may have a seat at the table in peace negotiations or political processes, there is a risk that such participation may not have any substantive influence.
  • Prioritizing gender equality and women’s empowerment could lead to resentment among other parts of the population, who feel that their rights are being eroded as a consequence.
  • Lack of support from national authorities to increase women’s participation in security, justice, legal and corrections institutions, and to increase their representation in politics and government.
  • A lack of women serving in the uniformed components deployed by TCCs/PCCs, which limits the ability of military and police contingents to engage effectively with the entire population.

6.2.6 Considerations

Ensuring that activities and programmes on gender equality include men

Focusing on women’s participation and empowerment, without a more comprehensive discussion with the national authorities and local communities about the importance of gender equality, could alienate some men and make them feel marginalized by the mission. It is quite often men who are in positions of leadership in post-conflict countries, which means that they need to be supporters of any initiatives by the peace operation to strengthen women’s participation in national institutions if they are to be sustainable following the departure of the mission. The MLT will have to consider their strategic communications with and approaches towards local actors on issues around women’s participation in politics and security institutions, with a strong emphasis on the importance of gender equality to a long-term, sustainable peace.

Resources provided by troop- and police-contributing countries

Force generation in peacekeeping missions is generally beyond the control of the MLT. Nevertheless, the mission leadership can use its influence to urge contingents to deploy more women to peacekeeping missions, but the operational case needs to be clearly made with both the TCC/PCC and UNHQ. In cases where a contingent has deployed very few women, the MLT should work with the military and police leadership to encourage the deployment of the available women on patrols where possible, rather than use them in camp administrative functions, in order to engage with the local population and security forces.

  1. In addition to UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the WPS Agenda has been further elaborated in resolutions 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013) and 2242 (2015). ↵

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Considerations for Mission Leadership in United Nations Peace Operations Copyright © 2021 by International Forum for the Challenges of Peace Operations. All Rights Reserved.

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