Gender, Development and Security in Yemen's Transition Process

Citation:

Christiansen, Connie Carøe. 2019. "Gender, Development and Security in Yemen's Transition Process." Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 13 (2): 197-215.

Author: Connie Carøe Christiansen

Abstract:

How policies at international level approach the gender dimension becomes salient, even urgent, for women whose countries are immersed in war and conflict, and who without effective governance at more local levels, rely entirely on these policies. The way Yemen is presented in the documents and media reports from selected members of the 'Friends of Yemen' donor group is in this study discussed in light of a range of narratives identified by Stern and Öjendal (2010) 2005; Cockburn 2007; Henry 2007; Shepherd 2008), 'gender' seems to be relevant to international and put into a feminist security perspective. The further aim is to reflect on the inter-linkages of gender, security and development at the level of donor motivations for aid, given on the one hand the recent prominence of the security agenda in the policy discourses of international interventions, and on the other the international attention to women's contribution to development in Yemen. I ask if a gender dimension is highlighted, subsumed, or absent. Despite feminist analyses of security as deeply gendered (e.g. Tickner 1992) 'gender' seems to be relevant in international security policies by implication only: Since it is necessary to include and consider gender in development processes, gender is relevant for the security-development nexus. This is how 'gender' feeds smoothly into existing policy discourses which claim that development is dependent on security in the country that needs to develop and vice versa; its security is dependent on development.

Keywords: conflict, feminist scholarship, Gender, security policies, narrative frameworks, donor motivations

Topics: Armed Conflict, Development, Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis, Peace and Security, Security Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Yemen

Year: 2019