Gender

Civil society and government representatives from Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Burundi recently gathered in Freetown for training on developing gender-sensitive indicators for the consolidation of peacebuilding programmes. Participants also attended a roundtable discussion on the development of National Action Plans (NAPs) for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

As part of the Human Security Project, International Alert Guinea recently held a series of workshops in the town of N’zerekore, in Guinea’s forest region, aimed at reducing sexual violence against women and improving access to justice for women and girl victims.

International Alert Burundi recently carried out a study on women’s perceptions of security as part of its programme aimed at supporting local women’s organisations for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.

Despite notable positive developments in many post-conflict countries in Africa, women’s representation in the parliaments of Liberia and Sierra Leone remains low and elections are still a considerable source of tension. This paper draws on local views to provide a largely qualitative assessment of the current state of women’s political participation in the two countries ahead of their forthcoming elections. It initially identifies the expanding opportunities for women that have emerged since conflict ended and shows how accompanying trends affect their greater participation.

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International Alert, together with Amnesty International UK, CARE International UK, Oxfam GB, WOMANKIND Worldwide, Women for Women International UK, and other members of the Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS) network, is launching the No Women No Peace. competition, a competition for creative people.

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.

Chris Dolan, director of the Refugee Law Project in Uganda, has recently been conducting research for International Alert for an upcoming report on sexual violence in eastern Congo. In this interview he concluded democracy is not possible in the eastern Congo without big changes in relations between men and women. Article published on 20th October 2010, Guardian.

United Nations Resolution 1325, passed 10 years ago this week, recognises the devastating impact of conflict on women and states that women must be involved in building peace. Despite this historic resolution, women all over the world are today suffering violence, while being excluded from solutions to conflict.

This report documents the processes and outcomes of a needs assessment carried out with women in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria between the 12th and 20th of July 2002. The Niger Delta region has been subject to a three-pronged conflict between communities, oil companies and the Nigerian government, as well as facing conflict within communities.

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The goal of this policy briefing is to provide a focused look at the challenges and obstacles to ensuring gender justice and accountability in the context of international peace support operations1 (PSOs) and to provide recommendations for UN and regional peacekeeping bodies (AU, ECOWAS, EU, NATO, OSCE) officials, responsible for peacekeeping in terms of setting policy standards and practice guidelines, as well as those directly involved as military or civilian peacekeepers. It approaches the issue of gender justice (see definition in section (iv)) in PSOs from three angles:

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This report examines the potential impact that gender issues have on small arms and light weapons (SALW) proliferation generally and specifically in relation to the 2001 UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA). It provides a general background to the interrelationship between the PoA and gender and provides recommendations to the UN on how the PoA can be better implemented by taking into account gender considerations.

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Afghanistan– General Information

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The Women Building Peace: Sharing Know-How workshop on Assessing Impact was held in London in July 2004. The meeting brought together women from conflict and transition contexts in Africa (including Uganda, Sudan, and Somalia), the Middle East (Israel), South Asia (Nepal), the Caucasus (Georgia and Abkhazia) and South America (Colombia).

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The adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in October 2000 was the first formal and legal document from the Security Council that requires parties to a conflict and the international community to respect women’s rights and to support their participation at all stages in peace negotiations, conflict prevention and post conflict reconstruction Five years after this adoption, it is timely to question what implementation mechanisms have been created.

Toolkit

This report examines the process leading up to and the establishment of the PBC, along with a critical analysis of what this newly formed Commission means, not only for women and the implementation of SCR 1325, but for the coordination of policy and frameworks that will achieve durable peace and development in the countries where the Commission operates.

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