Gender equality is key for building peace, security

Gender activists and gender-sensitive individuals and organisations maintain that the meaningful involvement of women in governance, peacebuilding and conflict resolution, both locally and globally, is a fundamental political right.

The African Union’s Gender Policy of 2008 has set its member states a target of 50/50 representation of women and men in politics and decision-making by 2020.

One organisation that has developed solid expertise in gender and peacebuilding is the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR), based in Cape Town, South Africa.

The CCR has, since 2005, worked with women in decision making from West Africa; women and men in leadership positions from the Great Lakes region and staff from gender ministries, national gender machineries, and civil society groups in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Sierra Leone.

Gender mainstreaming

The Centre’s gender and peacebuilding initiatives have also involved the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) to mainstream gender into the work of the UN Peacebuilding Commission.

Furthermore, the Centre has worked with the gender units of the AU and sub-regional bodies such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

In pursuit of its objectives, the CCR has convened more than 15 gender capacity-building workshops in the DRC, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland and Uganda, between 2009 and 2014, as part of a project it is undertaking to promote the equal participation of women, compared to men in institutions and organisations responsible for building peace, security and gender equality.

This is in line with the participating pillar of the United Nations Resolution 1325 of 2000 on women, peace and security.

Gender analysis

The workshops were meant to consolidate participants’ skills in gender analysis and gender ensitivity in peacebuilding and review, consolidate and concretise work and action plans for gender equality, made by participants, during the first set of workshops in the sub-region.

Early in July this year, the Centre organised a three-day workshop for participants, drawn from Ghana and Liberia, to consolidate the work undertaken in the country-level workshops and to further concretise commitments made towards gender equality in all participating institutions.

Topics discussed

The Accra workshop was the final in a series of three workshops undertaken for the project in the West African sub-region and the participants discussed topics including strategies for overcoming gender inequality; gender and peacebuilding; everyday patriarchy, its benefits and disadvantages; manifestation of gender injustice; policies, practices and procedures that promote equal participation of women and gender equality; UN Security Council Resolution 1325 - successes and challenges, and opportunities for gender transformation within organisations and institutions.

Ms Shamillah Wilson, a Consultant for the CCR, said since women were seen as the vulnerable group in times of war, the implementation of Resolution 1325 started from a gender perspective, which meant giving considerations to the experiences of both men and women, their resources, different experiences and their needs.

At the end of the workshop, participants’ skills in gender analysis and gender sensitivity in peacebuilding were enhanced and they renewed their commitments for a partnership between women and men to work for gender equality in participating institutions and also discussed best practices in promoting gender sensitivity.

They also looked at equality and the meaningful participation of women in building peace in their institutions and local communities.

Peace process

The participants concluded that women’s participation in the peace process at the local and international levels was necessary and called for increased education on UN Resolution 1325, in view of the slow pace of the implementation of the resolution.

They also stressed the need to address the issue of the use of child soldiers in conflict zones and the need for sustained projects and programmes to address the marginalisation of women in the peacebuilding process.

They also underscored the need for stakeholders to work together to enhance the implementation of Resolution 1325. — GNA