Securing the Peace: Guiding the International Community towards Women's Effective Participation throughout Peace Processes
The transition from war to peace opens a unique window of opportunity to address the root causes of conflict and transform institutions, structures and relationships within society. It is essential to ensure the active involvement of women and the articulation of gender equality from the earliest stages of peace talks through to implementation and monitoring of agreements. Not only do women have their own perspectives on political solutions and national recovery priorities to offer, but if they are excluded from peace accords this has tended, in the past, to guarantee their subsequent exclusion from public decision-making institutions.
The overarching goal envisioned in this publication is a locally driven, locally owned and inclusive process wherein women can assert their right to participate in the decisions being taken about their future and which will result in the signing and implementation of a gender-sensitive peace agreement. A narrow window of opportunity exists for a gender perspective to be incorporated in the transformative processes that follow conflict; these begin with the negotiations that end war and create a foundation for peace. The guidelines offered here point the way to helping women make the most of that window, so they contribute to and benefit from a lasting, just and inclusive peace.
This publication provides concrete recommendations to:
- support women's effective participation at all stages of a peace process,
- promote gender-sensitive peace negotiations and agreements, and
- encourage the mainstreaming of a gender perspective throughout the implementation of peace accords.
