Burundi

The Great Lakes region has in the last ten to fifteen years seen an increase in women’s representation and involvement in politics and the public sphere, a positive outcome of the region’s peace processes and political transitions.

Since May 2010, Burundi has embarked in a marathon electoral season, with five successive elections (at district, presidential, legislative, and village level) over a period of five months.

In the district elections on May 24th, the ruling party won a landslide victory. Despite some minor irregularities, international and national election observers stated the elections were largely fair, while opposition parties claimed they were fraudulent and withdrew from the election process.

As part of the Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, this tool provides an introduction to thebenefits and opportunities of integrating gender issues into national-level security policy making.As strategic documents, security policies are critically important in establishing a coordinated response to security threats, and can serve as a platform for security sector reform (SSR) processes. This includes national security policies (NSPs) as well as sector-specificpolicies, such as a white paper on defence.

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