“While gender equality is increasingly recognized as a core issue in the
maintenance of international peace and security, the role of women in peace
processes generally continues to be viewed as a side issue rather than as
fundamental to the development of viable democratic institutions and the
establishment of sustainable peace,” according to the first annual report
assessing progress on an Action Plan to mainstream gender perspectives into the
UN’s peace and security efforts.
The report details the myriad efforts throughout the UN system being made to
more systematically include women in peace efforts – from designing handbooks
and wide capacity building initiatives to the UN Populations Fund’s (UNFPA)
provision of rape treatment kits to 20,000 victims in Darfur - but notes there
is still far more to be done and recommends a more robust reporting, monitoring
and accountability system to advance fuller implementation.
The Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), for instance, now has eight
full-time gender advisers on its missions, new deployments the report says is
widely regarded as “one of the major capacity-development achievements”
contributing to implementing the Action Plan.
At the same time the expertise of the gender advisers was “often
underutilized,” in good part because the advisers were appointed at junior
levels, “precluding them from access to senior officials,” the report notes.
The same is true of the expertise of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and
Advancement of Women, a pivotal figure in the UN’s gender mainstreaming efforts.
“Overall the available gender expertise throughout the system was often excluded
from mainstream intra and inter-organizational decisions-making processes,” the
report says.
It also calls for a system-wide knowledge and information management system
to serve as a repository for good practices and lessons learned to advance the
Action Plan.
The Action Plan is designed to implement resolution 1325 (2000) which aims to
boost women’s role in conflict prevention, peace-keeping and peace-building
operations. The Action Plan was prepared by the Office of the Special Adviser on
Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, in close cooperation with the Inter-
Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality (IANWGE) and its Task Force on
Women, Peace and Security, and draws on contributions received from 39 UN
entities.
The report notes that the Action Plan would benefit from strengthened
commitment by the UN and member states – becoming more integrated as UN
“system-wide strategy” rather than a “compilation of activities” – clearer
performance metrics, and from more predictable funding. “Women and peace
activities are often considered as an add-on responsibility to peace and
security mandates that are expected to be met within existing budgetary
resources,” the report said, adding though that “the experience of the United
Nations system consistently shows that this expectation is not realistic.” ___________________________________________________________________