By Jessica Margolis and Tahina Montoya
Introduction
Over the past several decades, the United States (U.S.) has worked to develop conflict mitigation and prevention strategies in response to growing crises and poor governance in conflict-affected states. These stabilization missions have given significant attention and resources to women’s rights and gender programs, but U.S. gender policy has had varied and limited success.1 Well-intentioned programs were marred by poor coordination and expertise, as well as a lack of integration throughout all aspects of the stabilization process. The last twenty years of Afghanistan reconstruction offer numerous examples, and recent developments underscore an urgent need for the U.S. to review its approach to stabilization, especially when it comes to gender and women’s rights, and assess how to implement new strategies more effectively