Source: WikiGender
Peacebuilding is a term used to describe the post-conflict actions of a variety of agents with the intent to work toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships and governance modes and structures. Peacebuilding includes building legal and human rights institutions as well as fair and effective governance and dispute resolution processes and systems. To be effective, peacebuilding activities requires careful and participatory planning, coordination among various efforts, and sustained commitments by both local and donor partners.^[1] Moreover, peacebuilding must incorporate a gendered perspective that takes into account the varying effects the process can have on women in particular.

Who Does Peacebuilding?

In most post-conflict situations there are many actors who contribute to peacebuilding: Humanitarian and development agencies may be in a country before, during and after the conflict. Once on the ground and when the conflict ends, these actors can lay the important foundations for the peacebuilding process (by providing early peace dividends). Peacekeeping operations increasingly play a significant role as early peacebuilders. The mandates of multi-dimensional operations include disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), security sector reform (SSR) and support to electoral processes. DPA Special Political Missions and integrated peacebuilding missions are also given the mandate to cover a wide range of peacebuilding tasks.

In countries that are eligible to receive funding from the Peacebuilding Fund, a joint Steering Committee is responsible to plan, manage and approve the funds and advocate for broader peacebuilding goals. The joint Steering committe is co-chaired by the national Government and the United nations with a broader membership representing national and international stakeholders.^[2]

Gendered Peacebuilding

In 2000, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1325, which calls on the UN and member countries to do the following: protect women from gender-based violence in war zones and include women (and gender perspectives) in peace negotiations, support their peacemaking initiatives in addition to providing gender-sensitive training to peacekeepers, and engage in gender mainstreaming through UN monitoring of and reporting on the gender dimensions of conflict and conflict resolution, including the impact of armed conflict on women and girls and the roles of women in peacekeeping. While Resolution 1325 was hailed as a breakthrough in peacebuilding policy, its effects did not have a substantial impact on the lives of women in post-conflict states. Widespread gender violence, including increased reports of rape by peacekeeping forces, was discovered though reports on women, peace, and security that were mandated by 1325.

Acknowledging this epidemic of gender violence, the United Nations passed the UN Security Council Resolution 1820 in 2008. Also non-binding, the text of 1820 reasserts the principles of 1325, but, in addition, stresses sexual violence as a war crime, demands its cessation and no amnesty for its perpetrators, requests a policy of zero tolerance for sexual violence by UN peacekeepers and in UN refugee camps, and requests consultation with women and women's organizations to find solutions to sexual violence in post-conflict states.

Unfortunately, the role of women in the logistical aspects of peacebuilding operations has been limited. Women made up just 17 percent of UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations' senior staff; only 1.9 percent of peacekeeping soldiers contributed by members states are women; women remain virtually absent at peace-negotiating tables as participants or even observers; little to no training to prevent sexual violence is provided to peacekeepers; and accountability, compliance, and incentive mechanisms are virtually absent in 1325 and 1820 when compares with those set out in the 2005 Security Council Resolution 1612 on Children and Armed Conflict.

Moreover, the failures of these mechanisms indicate the existence of underlying gender issues in this field. Peacekeeping troops are indoctrinated with a militarized masculinity, which neither prepares them for the humanitarian work they are expected to do nor encourages them to force the restraint they must observe. Yet, peacekeeping troops still expect the same perks as other military personal as they "run brothels, assault local women, and kill local citizens". Instead of rethinking the gendered aspects of peacebuilding, international efforts have merely incorporated these notions into existing programmatic solutions. Overall, gender perspectives on international peace and security are subsumed under a kind of security governmentality. Scholars have concluded that the issue is not so much adding more women to peacekeeping operations, but rather questioning the sole reliance on militaries to do the job of peacekeeping and, by extension, on military leaders and civillian defense elites to do the job of peacebuilding.^[3]

Women Associated to Violence

Women have throughout history have been viewed through conflict and conflict reconstruction as the victims or those who receive aid as opposing to actually being the player that contributes to the development of peace. However, the social status of women does play a major role in the development of states post-conflict. Women who hold higher status’s within societies and communities have the ability to participate and contribute to peace building, as a group among the community with peace building policies and activities increases. With the presence of the United Nations leading post-war peace building operations, woman have proven to have a direct and massive impact on the reconstruction of the country.

The association between women and a decreased percentage of violence is contrived by two main theories. The first theory notes that women’s status is linked to absence of violence. Also, nations who promote human rights and egalitarian structures are linked as well with the absence of violence.^[4][5] The second theory associates itself with the status of women, through it’s relationship to the development and growth to levels of violence. As the women in the community achieve a higher status, this in turn, contributes to a decrease in internal violence, preventing another civil war from occurring.

UN Peace Building Missions and Women

The women’s organizations emerging in the aftermath of civil wars were often inter-ethnic groupings attempting to amend the mistrust fostered by conflict, and they provided opportunities to advance the welfare of local communities.^[6] There are two ways by which the process of peace building can benefit from involvement by women’s organizations in post-conflict reconstruction. First, the UN-led peace building operations can foster bridging networks—such as local women’s organizations—by enhancing and supporting their resources (e.g. contact resources). And the second is that the UN can facilitate linkages between vertical and horizontal networks. An example of this can be analyzed in Liberia the Women in Peace building Network (WIPNET) were the key players communicating between rebel groups and Charles Taylor. Women have progressively gained their stance. For example in Sierra Leone, the UN Peace building Commission (PBC) acknowledged women’s political participation their reforms and policies, under the PBC and United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), has integrated women leaders from civil society into the peace building agenda.^[7]

Nations in which women are able to achieve a higher status have a greater chance to successfully develop peace, with the help of the community and United Nations organizations, which will increase the establishment of fundamental policies and program. With the direct presence of the United Nations leading the development of peace, women’s status will have an immediate impact on the reconstruction of a post-conflicted nation.

 

For more information, check out WikiGender on Peacebuilding