A Future without Women, Peace and Security?
We are heading into unchartered dark waters on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). Norms, alliances, institutions, and resources–carefully formed over time–are currently under threat; either undermined by new geopolitical priorities, or under attack in an increasingly polarized world. Yet at a time when WPS has never been more questioned, the need for WPS might never have been greater. In 2022, 600 million women lived in direct proximity to armed conflict.
What lessons are there then for the next generation who has to promote WPS during more challenging times?
For me, the answer is the same as it was 25 years ago. There is great potential in data and evidence-based research. This belief is even stronger today, as we now know substantially more. This is progress I have had the privilege to follow since 1999, when I was hired at Uppsala University to support the UN-led project Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peace Support Operations, a project which was to result in the Windhoek Declaration and the Namibia Plan of Action. At the time, the UN was under strong pressure from demands emanating out of the UN Decade of Women, the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, and the ECOSOC decision on gender mainstreaming. Research was included in the project, as knowledge in 1999-2000 was both scarce and piecemeal. My overview and studies of the UN operations in Namibia and Cambodia aimed to improve the understanding of how the UN could support ongoing localized processes on women’s empowerment. The research was not easy; only a handful of previous studies existed on which I could build. The lack of gender disaggregated data was another major obstacle.
Today, data and research are instead so extensive that it can be difficult for policy to keep up with new and nuanced findings. We now know that women’s direct engagement in war, as combatants, soldiers, or as political actors, is more prevalent and complex than we expected. Politically-based attacks targeting civilian women’s political engagement for peace underline that women’s agency is already a part of conflict resolution. In terms of the impact of war, we better understand why and how gender plays into targeting of violence, including by conflict-related sexual violence. We know that women’s economic and social rights and capacity contribute to post-war security and rebuilding. Such knowledge allows for more targeted actions, but also for reconsidering some existing approaches to WPS.
My vision for the future is one that sees closer and more organized cooperation between decision-makers and researchers to capitalize on emerging knowledge. This is not an innovative request. Already at the first Open Debate on WPS held in October 2000, Croatia importantly acknowledged the significance of strong collaboration. Making this vision real requires practical and long-term formats of more equal exchanges. For example, I have organized and led a research group on WPS at the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) between 2009-2017 and arranged a research-policy dialogue forum over two years during Norway’s term in the UN Security Council.
I remain hopeful that systematically utilizing the extensive and growing pool of evidence-based research findings can help defend and reinvigorate WPS.
About the Author
Louise Olsson is the Research Director at The Peace Research Institute Oslo’s (PRIO) Global Norms, Politics and Society Department and leads PRIO’s Gender Research Group. Actively connecting research with policy making, her work centers on gender dynamics in conflict, women’s rights in peace processes, and the implementation of the WPS agenda, particularly in Nordic national security and defense policies. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals, including International Negotiations, Global Governance, Social Science Research, Journal of Global Security Studies, and International Peacekeeping. Prior to her role at PRIO, Olsson was a Senior Advisor on gender and WPS at FBA, supported the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norway’s UN Security Council Term (2021-2022), and worked in the Swedish government agency, contributing to military gender training in the Nordic region. Olsson received her PhD from the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in 2007.
Image Courtesy of Folke Bernadotte Academy.