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West Africa - Mainstreaming Gender in Peace Support Operations

The Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-Africa), ECOWAS Gender Development Centre (EGDC), and Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) through support from the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) organized a Training of Trainers’ (ToT) Workshop on Mainstreaming Gender and Women’s Issues in Multidimensional Peace Support Operations. The workshop was held on the premises of the KAIPTC in Accra, Ghana, March 31 – April 3, 2009, and it consisted of a three-day workshop and a one-day author’s meeting, with participants drawn from select sub-regional institutions such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), United Nations Field Missions, national security institutions and regional civil society organizations, including women’s groups.

In many ways, the workshop is a response to UNSCR 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security and more recently to UNSCR 1820 (2008) on Sexual Violence. The United Nations adopted these landmark resolutions to address the impact of war on women and spur greater participation of women in peace keeping and peace processes. Both resolutions grew out of the advocacy of women in war-torn regions who wanted a greater voice. This Workshop and the resulting Manual will provide women in West Africa with the opportunity to incorporate their narratives into efforts to promote and sustain peace, as well as develop indigenous knowledge on this subject matter in Africa.

The Training of Trainers’ Workshop served three purposes: First, as a pilot course, the workshop provided the opportunity test a draft manual on Mainstreaming Gender and Women’s Issues in Multidimensional Peace Support Operations in West Africa; Secondly, authors and participants were able to collectively review, enrich and improve each module within the draft manual; and, Thirdly, the review process itself resulted in the development of a new cadre of trainers from a variety of institutions in West Africa on mainstreaming gender and women’s issues in peace support operations.

The Training of Trainers’ Workshop addressed the myriad of issues specifically affecting women and girls during peace support operations and provided participants with the tools to use these lessons in their own institutions and organizations, using concrete sub-regional examples. Through discussions, debate and a review of the draft manual, participants were also able to provide vital feedback and suggest additional case studies that will be included to further enhance future courses through practical illustrations.

Upon publication, this region-specific manual will be a new, practical tool to strengthen institutional capacities on gender mainstreaming issues in the context of multidimensional peace support operations. In fact, KAIPTC already intends to use modules from this new tool in their upcoming Peace Support Operations course (IPSO) to be held at the Center in June 2009. We expect that this is simply the first opportunity for ECOWAS countries to benefit from the manual, particularly given the prominent roles played by a number of West African countries in contributing personnel to peacekeeping operations throughout Africa as well as the training needs of ECOWAS in their continuing work towards the development of the African Standby Force. 

For more information:

ECOWAS Gender Development Centre (EGDC)

http://www.ccdg.ecowas.int/

GTZ

http://www.gtz.de/en/index.htm

Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center (KAIPTC)

http://www.kaiptc.org/home/

Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-Africa)

http://www.wipsen-africa.org

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http://www.wipsen-africa.org/wipsen/news/ecowas.html

WIPSEN-Africa Signs Memorandum of Understanding

With ECOWAS, KAIPTC and GTZ

The Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-Africa) has formalized its collaboration with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) and the German Development Cooperation (GTZ) through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that is aimed at promoting the mainstreaming of gender and women's issues in peace and security in West Africa.

The MoU specifically defines the terms of the tripartite partnership between WIPSEN-Africa, the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre (EGDC) in Dakar, Senegal and the KAIPTC/GTZ to among others,

1. Develop a region-specific gender, peace and security manual to be used for training of military and civilian peace support personnel and field practitioners;
2. Increase capacity to mainstream gender in peace and security policies, programmes and institutions; and
3. Document grassroots women's perspectives on peace and security as a basis for developing informed training curricula and operational guidelines.

The project will be focused on, and implemeted with stakeholders from the Fifteen (15) ECOWAS Member States. Special focus will however be placed on Five (5) countries which provide represntative cases of unique conflict and peace systems with natural socio-cultural, economic, political, and security inter-linkages; namely: Liberia (post-conflict), Guinea Conakry (simmering conflict zone), Cote d'Ivoire (fragile), Niger Delta, Nigeria (a region recently transiting from armed violence) and Ghana ("peaceful").

For more information on the project please contact wipsen@wipsen-africa.org.

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