UNSCR 1325

Citation:

Ryan, Caitlin, and Helen Basini. 2017. "UNSC Resolution 1325 National Action Plans in Liberia and Sierra Leone: An Analysis of Gendered Power Relations in Hybrid Peacebuilding."Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 11 (2): 186-206. 

Authors: Caitlin Ryan, Helen Basini

Abstract:

This paper considers how the use of ‘hybridity’ in the peacebuilding literature overlooks the gendered dimensions of hybrid interactions. It does so by examining the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325 national action plans (NAPs) for Liberia and Sierra Leone. By asking the gendered questions of ‘who participates?’ and ‘how do they participate?’ it draws from Mac Ginty’s conception of hybridity and traces the compliance and incentivizing power in hybridized peace, as well as the ability of local actors to resist and provide alternatives. However, Mac Ginty’s model is found to be inadequate because of its inattention to the gendered nature of power. It is found that with a gendered approach to hybridity, it is easier to trace the processes of hybridization of NAPs in post-conflict states where their implementation is limited. In asking the questions of ‘who’ and ‘how’, three conclusions about the gendered nature of hybrid peacebuilding are drawn: international intervention relies upon the ‘feminization’ of local actors; issues framed within the realm of the ‘masculine’ are more likely to get attention; and the Resolution 1325 agenda in post-conflict states can be subverted by framing it as a ‘soft’ issue.

Keywords: UNSC Res. 1325, hybrid peace, Liberia, Sierra Leone, National Action Plans

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone

Year: 2017

Citation:

Bell, Christine, and Kevin McNicholl. 2019. "Principled Pragmatism and the ‘Inclusion Project’: Implementing a Gender Perspective in Peace Agreements." feminists@law 9 (1). 

Authors: Christine Bell, Kevin McNicholl

Abstract:

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 of 2000 provided that peace agreements should adopt a ‘gender perspective’. This commitment has been reiterated in women, peace and security resolutions since that time. This article uses a mixed qualitative and quantitative analysis to consider when and how peace agreements have adopted a gender perspective, using a new PA-X peace agreement database to analyse over 1500 peace and transition agreements from between 1990 and 2016.  It goes further to consider how inclusion of women is related to the other forms of political and group inclusion contemplated to form part of the new political settlement. The article begins by examining what might be meant by a ‘gender perspective in peace agreements’.  It maps out when and how peace agreements provide for women, girls and gender, but also for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans communities, and for ‘men and boys’ and ‘family’ at different stages of a peace process.  The article provides new data on the implementation of agreement commitments and specifically those issues singled out for attention by UNSC 1325. Finally, we consider the inclusion project on offer to women and its relationship to the conceptualisation of the conflict and its solution, by considering the relationship between gender, power-sharing and transitional justice. In summary, analysis of the dataset provides three main findings.  First provision for women is still largely limited to once-off provisions, or issues relating to the victimhood of women, with holistic attempts to adopt a ‘gender perspective’ relatively rare.  Second, the inclusion of women in peace agreement texts tends to be located in the more comprehensive stages of the agreement, with little consideration given to women and gender at either pre-negotiation stages of a peace process, or implementation stages. Third, surprisingly perhaps, political power-sharing is shown to be strongly correlated with several measures of gender inclusion rather than marking an exclusive focus on the inclusion of the groups at the heart of the conflict.  In conclusion we argue that peace agreements indicate the presence of ‘principled pragmatism’ whereby elite commitments to political equality are used by a range of groups to push for a more pluralist conception of the peace settlement as also concerned with the political equality of groups beyond the conflict actors.

Keywords: women and conflict, gender perspective, peace processes, power-sharing, transitional justice, constitutions

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Justice, Transitional Justice, LGBTQ, Post-Conflict, Political Participation, Peace Processes, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325

Year: 2019

Citation:

Singh, Shweta. 2017. "Gender, Conflict and Security: Perspectives from South Asia." Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs 4 (2): 149-57.

Author: Shweta Singh

Abstract:

This article provides an overview to this special issue of JASIA, entitled ‘Gender, Conflict and Security: Perspectives from South Asia’. Gender intersects with conflict and security and yet remains at the margins of academic theorizing, policy priority and practitioner perspectives in South Asia. This special issue puts forth fresh insights into how and why the lived experiences of women in South Asia (particularly from areas of protracted conflict such as Nepal, India and Sri Lanka) are different? And how and why these impinge on the global discourse on security? It argues that this analysis is pertinent not just from the standpoint of academic theorizing on security but also from the perspective of international security policy like the United Nations led Women, Peace and Security Agenda. This is the 17th year of the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, and only Nepal and Afghanistan in South Asia have a National Action Plan. This special issue also critically examines the key gaps in the international policy on Women, Peace and Security Agenda and how it ‘speaks’ or ‘not speaks’ to the contextual reality of South Asia.

Keywords: Gender, conflict, security, South Asia, women peace and security, UNSCR 1325

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Women, International Organizations, Peacebuilding, Peace and Security, Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka

Year: 2017

Citation:

Singh, Shweta. 2017. "Re-thinking the ‘Normative’ in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325: Perspectives from Sri Lanka." Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs 4 (2): 219-38.

Author: Shweta Singh

Abstract:

This article asserts the need to re-think the ‘normative’ in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) from the standpoint of the ‘local’, in this case Sri Lanka. It argues that UNSCR 1325 needs to be situated within the larger discourse on international norms, and challenges to the implementation of UNSCR 1325 in varied ‘local’ contexts can be evaluated through the theoretical frameworks provided by existing literature on norms diffusion. I put forward three main arguments: First, the need to go beyond the neat classification of contexts as ‘conflict’ and ‘post-conflict’; second, the need to problematize gender as homogenous and women as coherent stable category of analysis; and third, to look beyond women as victims or agents. I argue that women in post-war Sri Lanka can more aptly be classified as controlled actors as women’s agency is structurally and culturally controlled, which inhibits their capacity to act or perform. In conclusion, I posit that Sri Lanka not only presents a strong case for the localization of the ‘normative’ in UNSCR 1325 but also provides justification for a three-level bottom-up analysis (local, regional and international) to comprehensively understand why UNSCR 1325 fails or succeeds to influence state behaviour.

Keywords: United Nations Security Council 1325, gender norms, norm diffusion, post-war Sri Lanka, controlled actors

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, International Organizations, Peace and Security, Post-Conflict, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Sri Lanka

Year: 2017

Citation:

Paffenholz, Thania, Nick Ross, Steven Dixon, Anna-Lena Schluchter, and Jacqui True. 2016. Making Women Count - Not Just Counting Women: Assessing Women's Inclusion and Influence on Peace Negotiations. Geneva: Inclusive Peace and Transition Initiative and UN Women. 

Authors: Thania Paffenholz, Nick Ross, Steven Dixon, Anna-Lena Schluchter, Jacqui True

Annotation:

Topics: Gender, Women, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325

Year: 2016

Citation:

United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office, and United Nations Development Programme. 2013. Women and Natural Resources Unlocking the Peacebuilding Potential. United Nations .

Authors: Adrienne Stork, Cassidy Travis, Silja Halle

Annotation:

Summary:

“Women’s diverse experiences in times of conflict have powerful implications for peacebuilding. Their capacity to recover from conflict and contribute to peace is influenced by their role in the conflict, whether directly engaged in armed groups, displaced, or forced to take on additional responsibilities to sustain their livelihoods and care for dependents. In spite of efforts by the international community to recognize and better address these multiple roles through agreements such as United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the dominant perception of women as passive victims in conflict settings continues to constrain their ability to formally engage in political, economic and social recovery, and thereby contribute to better peacebuilding.

One of the unexplored entry points for strengthening women’s contributions to peacebuilding relates to the ways in which they use, manage, make decisions on and benefit from natural resources. Coupled with shifting gender norms in conflict-affected settings, women’s roles in natural resource management provide significant opportunities to enhance their participation in decisionmaking at all levels, and to enable them to engage more productively in economic revitalization activities.

As the primary providers of water, food and energy at the household and community levels, women in rural settings are often highly dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods, and are therefore particularly susceptible to changes in the availability and quality of these resources during and after conflict. In particular, lack of access to land – which underpins rights to all other natural resources and is a key asset for securing productive inputs – can force them into increasingly vulnerable situations and expose them to higher levels of physical and livelihood risk, with trickle-down impacts on community welfare. The structural discrimination that women face regarding resource rights and access also limits their political participation and economic productivity.

At the same time, conflict often leads both women and men to adopt coping strategies that challenge traditional gender norms. To meet the needs of their households and compensate for loss of revenue usually provided by male family members, women may assume new natural resource management roles, either by taking up alternative income-generating activities or by moving into traditionally male sectors. In the aftermath of conflict, capitalizing on these shifting roles can contribute to breaking down barriers to women’s empowerment and enhancing women’s productivity in sectors that are often critical to economic revitalization.

Failure to recognize the challenges and opportunities awarded to women in conflict-affected settings by their various roles in natural resource management also risks perpetuating inequalities and deepening grievances linked to natural resource rights, access and control, which have proven to be powerful catalysts for violence. Addressing issues of inequality related to resource access and ownership, participation in decision-making and benefitsharing early on in the peacebuilding process is therefore a critical condition for lasting peace and development.

To strengthen peacebuilding outcomes by enhancing women’s engagement and empowerment in conflictaffected contexts through sustainable natural resource management, this report recommends that national
governments and the international community take the following action:

1. Promote women’s participation in formal and informal decision-making structures and governance processes related to natural resource management in peacebuilding: Working with natural resource management authorities can help increase women’s participation in decision-making at the sub-national and national levels. However, targeted support is needed for overcoming the structural, social and cultural barriers to women’s formal and informal political participation in conflict-affected settings. This can be achieved by including women and gender specialists early on in peace negotiations in a variety of positions – as negotiators, as expert advisors and as civil society observers – and in mediation support teams, as well as supporting their capacity to engage effectively in these processes. It also requires ensuring that women are represented in relevant decision-making bodies, including through the use of quotas and soliciting inputs from a broad range of women’s groups and networks when elaborating natural resource management policies. In addition gender experts should be part of teams charged with developing policies and other governance tools around natural resource management in peacebuilding contexts, including in supply-chain certification mechanisms, benefit-sharing schemes, and transparency initiatives. Finally, it is essential to provide training and capacity-building and to support the advocacy efforts of women’s organizations and networks.
2. Adopt proactive measures to protect women from resource-related physical violence and other security risks early in the peacebuilding period: Women in conflict-affected settings routinely experience physical insecurity, including sexual violence, when carrying out daily tasks linked to the collection and use of natural resources. Moreover, while the impacts of environmental contamination and pollution adversely affect all, women are particularly vulnerable, due to heightened exposure in their gendered roles and responsibilities. Protecting women from these risks is not only important to their health, but also key to ensuring that they are able to safely carry out economic and social activities linked to natural resource management. Among other measures, addressing these risks can involve: conducting assessments to identify specific resource and environment-related security and health threats for women in conflict-affected contexts; ensuring that women have safe access to key resources, such as fuel wood and water, in internally displaced persons and refugee camps; supporting the dissemination of innovative technologies, such as improved cook stoves, that protect women from adverse health impacts in carrying out their roles; increasing women’s participation in security sector institutions and conflict resolution  processes; and supporting awareness-raising and training on women’s rights among the staff of government institutions and the national security sector, as well as at the community level, in order to increase gender-sensitive operational effectiveness and security service delivery by the army and police.
3. Remove barriers and create enabling conditions to build women’s capacity for productive and sustainable use of natural resources: Access to credit, technical support and benefits from natural resource exploitation is essential to improving women’s economic productivity, which in turn is key to their empowerment. Likewise, legal support for the enforcement of land rights and other resource rights underpins women’s ability to productively use natural resources for their recovery. Achieving this can include: identifying women’s specific roles in key natural resource sectors and how those roles may have been affected during conflict, establishing regular consultative mechanisms with a variety of women’s groups and networks on the development of basic service infrastructure in their communities, prioritizing land negotiation and reform processes that improve women’s rights to land. In addition, providing legal aid, conflict management, negotiation and mediation services to women can enable them to enforce their resource-related rights and access dispute resolution mechanisms. Prioritizing access to finance, inputs and skills training for women and men equally, upholding human rights and minimum labor standards for women’s involvement in the extractive sectors and ensuring private companies operating in the extractive sectors engage both men and women during environmental and social impact assessments, as well as throughout the project cycle can further improve women’s productive and sustainable use of natural resources. Finally, women’s representation on commissions established for wealth-sharing and national and sub-national level and the provision of gender expertise for such bodies, should be prioritized and efforts made to ensure that women are included in community based natural resource management initiatives in conflict-affected settings.
4. Within the United Nations, increase inter-agency cooperation to pursue women’s empowerment and sustainable natural resource management together in support of more effective peacebuilding: Existing inter-agency mechanisms at the global and country levels should be tasked to address the risks and opportunities presented to women by natural resource management in peacebuilding contexts more systematically in their work, including by: conducting pilot programmes to learn lessons on how to integrate the linkages between women, natural resources and peacebuilding in joint assessments and country programming; ensuring that 15 percent of all funding towards UN-supported natural resource management programmes in peacebuilding is allocated to women’s empowerment and gender equality; requiring the collection of sex and agedisaggregated data on peacebuilding and recovery programmes that address and/or have an impact on natural resource management; developing specific targets related to the participation of women and gender experts in natural resource management in post-conflict countries, in line with the priorities and goals set in the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States and the goals for the post-2015 development agenda; supporting further research on the nexus of women, natural resources and peacebuilding, particularly in areas where significant knowledge gaps remain; and integrating gender equality and women’s empowerment issues in meetings of actors working on addressing the linkages between natural resources, conflict and peacebuilding.” (Stork, Travis, and Halle 2013, 7-8)

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households, International Organizations, Livelihoods, Peacebuilding, Peace and Security, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Land Rights, Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Violence

Year: 2013

Citation:

Otto, Dianne. 2019. "Contesting Feminism’s Institutional Doubles: Troubling the Security Council’s Women, Peace and Security Agenda." In Governance Feminism: Notes from the Field, edited by Janet Halley, Prabha Kotiswaran, Rachel Rebouché, and Hila Shamir, 200-29. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Author: Dianne Otto

Annotation:

Summary:
"In early 2000, feminist peace activists embarked on an ambitious new strategy of engagement with institutional power, from within rather than from outside the international military and diplomatic establishment, when the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) led a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) hoping to persuade the UN Security Council to adopt a thematic resolution on women, peace, and security (WPS). Previously, the Council had shown almost no interest in women except, commencing with the 1990s conflicts in the Balkans, as victims of conflict-related sexual violence. That the Council responded positively to the efforts of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security (hereafter referred to simply as the NGO Working Group) and unanimously adopted Resolution 1325 (SCR 1325) on October 31, 2000, came as a surprise to me, although, as I will explain, I have since realized that there was much for the Council to gain by (re)presenting itself as feminist-friendly. I have also been astonished by the remarkable institutional productivity that has followed the adoption of SCR 1325. Not only has it prompted annual Security Council debates on WPS and annual Secretary-General’s Reports since 2004; it has led to a further seven resolutions on this theme (as of October 2016). Cascades of gender policies, training manuals, checklists, indicators, benchmarks, targets, studies, and reports have also followed, as well as many new positions established for “gender experts,” including the special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict and Gender Advisory Teams deployed by UN Peacekeeping to all multidimensional peacekeeping operations" (Otto 2019, 200-1).

Topics: Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, International Organizations, Peacebuilding, Political Participation, Peacekeeping, Sexual Violence, SV against Women, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, UNSCR 1820, UNSCR 1888, UNSCR 1889, UNSCR 1960, UNSCR 2106, UNSCR 2122, UNSCR 2242

Year: 2019

Citation:

Pierson, Claire. 2019. "Gendering Peace in Northern Ireland: The Role of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security." Capital & Class 43 (1): 57-71.

Author: Claire Pierson

Abstract:

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on ‘women, peace and security’ was passed in 2000 to recognise and enhance women’s participation in peacebuilding. The Resolution has growing global significance in conflicted societies yet there is limited analysis of its implementation in specific social contexts. Utilising feminist theory on gender in conflicted societies and original empirical evidence from key grassroots community activists in Northern Ireland, I will consider the potential of the 1325 framework as a tool for conceptualising and achieving gender security and equality. This article contributes to an understanding of the importance of deep contextual interpretation for implementation of the women, peace and security agenda and argues for a feminist intersectional interpretation of the Resolution to enable its transformative potential for both peace-building and gender equality.

Keywords: equality, Gender, Northern Ireland, peace, security, women

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Intersectionality, Peace and Security, Post-Conflict, Peacebuilding, Political Participation, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Europe, Northern Europe Countries: United Kingdom

Year: 2019

Citation:

Chitando, Anna. 2019. “From Victims to the Vaunted: Young Women and Peace Building in Mashonaland East, Zimbabwe.” African Security Review 28 (2): 110–23.

Author: Anna Chitando

Abstract:

Reflecting on young women involved in violence/peace, the dominant views present them as victims. This is understandable, as young women constitute the majority of those who are at the receiving end of violence. Further, young people are generally regarded as a threat. However, this paradigm glosses over the contribution of young women to peacebuilding in their communities. Despite the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 calling for women’s equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, major challenges of its implementation in Africa remain. Therefore, this study sought to establish young women’s understanding of peacebuilding, activities they undertook to contribute to peacebuilding in Mashonaland East in Zimbabwe, and the challenges they encounter. The study prioritised the agency of young women in contributing towards peace in Mashonaland East, Zimbabwe. The research was based on the qualitative method as it sought to establish how women participate in peacebuilding. Findings of the study showed that young women are contributing to peacebuilding, although they face some challenges.

Keywords: peacebuilding, young women, Mashonaland East province, Zimbabwe, women's participation, agency

Topics: Age, Gender, Women, Peacebuilding, Peace and Security, Post-Conflict, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Violence Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Zimbabwe

Year: 2019

Citation:

Justino, Patricia, Ivan Cardona, Rebecca Mitchell. and Catherine Müller. 2012. "Quantifying the Impact of Women’s Participation in Post-Conflict Economic Recovery." HiCN Working Paper 131, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies. 

Authors: Patricia Justino, Ivan Cardona, Rebecca Mitchell, Catherine Müller

Annotation:

Summary:
"The main aim of this report is to analyse how changes in the roles and activities of women during episodes of violent conflict may shape their contribution to post-conflict economic recovery and sustainable peace. The report poses two important questions for which limited evidence is to date available in the academic literature on violent conflict or in policy programming in post-conflict contexts:

1. How does violent conflict change the roles that women take on within their households and communities?
2. How do changes in female roles during conflict affect women‘s own status after the conflict, and the capacity of households and communities to recover from the conflict? 

In order to address these questions, the report reviews existing knowledge and provides new empirical evidence on the nature and extent of changes in women‘s roles and activities as a result of their exposure to violent conflict and the impact of these changes on post-conflict economic recovery at the household and community levels. The purpose of this empirical analysis is to provide a better understanding of (i) how changes in women‘s roles and activities may contribute towards processes of economic recovery; (ii) whether existing interventions are able to support these new roles (if positive) or to help women overcome negative outcomes; and (iii) what interventions the international community and local governments need to encourage in order to support the role of women in economic recovery and peacebuilding processes. The research was based on a literature review and original comparative empirical analysis in six country case studies: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Kosovo, Nepal, Tajikistan and Timor Leste. This analysis offers a first step towards the generation of rigorous evidence on the relationship between women‘s engagement in economic recovery and community stability in post-conflict countries. The results obtained must be interpreted with caution due to the simplistic nature of the analytical methods employed. Nonetheless, the empirical analysis points to a number of strong and suggestive trends and patterns, as follows:

• Women participate more actively in labour markets during conflict. This result is consistent across the six case studies. However, despite increases in labour market participation, women often face substantial limitations in terms of access to employment, the types of employment available to them, and the levels of wages received. In addition, women‘s contribution to household economic security is overlooked in the post-conflict period: women tend to lose their jobs once the war is over and face pressures to return to traditional roles.
• In general, vulnerability among women increases during conflict. This result is particularly significant for female-headed households. This is due to three main factors. The first is an increase in dependency rates during the conflict: households have more children to take care of (due to increases in fertility and in the number of orphans) and have more injured and incapacitated household members to support. The second is an increase in the labour market participation of women without any visible reduction in other obligations: women join formal and informal employment when male workers enlist in armed forces or are killed, injured, migrate or are abducted, in addition to their traditional household duties. The third is related to the type of jobs that women perform in contexts of violent conflict. These are typically low-paid, low-skilled jobs in the form of self-employment in informal activities or unpaid family labour. These new activities very seldom result in direct empowerment gains for women and may contribute further to their levels of vulnerability.
• However, and against all odds, increases in the labour participation of women in conflict-affected areas are in some cases associated with increases in overall household and community welfare, when compared with households and communities in areas less affected by violence, and measured in terms of higher per capita consumption. This result is dependent on the type of work in which women engage: benefits are more significant when women are employed in better paid jobs. Remarkably, positive household or community benefits were still observed in some case studies despite the low status jobs performed by women affected by conflict, and the fact that women earn on average less than men.

These results are not reflected in policy interventions currently being implemented in conflictaffected countries, including employment generation programmes, microfinance projects, community-driven development (CDD) initiatives, peacebuilding projects and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes. Despite the potentially important peace dividends of more systematic integration of women in economic recovery and peacebuilding initiatives, of more meaningful employment for women and of measures that improve women‘s power relations within the household and in their communities, current policy programming in conflict-affected countries continues to prioritise the role of men in the achievement of peace, security and economic stability. Women remain outside mainstream peacebuilding and economic recovery programmes.

This situation may be partially due to the lack of rigorous enough evidence on the roles played by women in the economic security of their households through periods of violence, and in contributing positively to the economic recovery of communities affected by armed conflict. This project contributes, we expect, to the improvement of this evidence basis. The evidence discussed in this report suggests very strongly that post-conflict recovery interventions should support much more systematically women‘s engagement in economic reconstruction of postconflict societies, given the large yet unexploited benefits of women‘s involvement in household and community-level recovery processes” (Justino et al 2012, 6-7).

Topics: Armed Conflict, DDR, Economies, Conflict, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households, International Organizations, Livelihoods, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Violence

Year: 2012