Gender Parity in Peace Operations: Opportunities for U.S. Engagement

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By Luisa Ryan and Shannon Zimmerman

On November 14–15, 2017, the government of Canada hosted the UN Peacekeeping Defense Ministerial Conference.1 Over 500 delegates from 70 countries, the African Union, the United Nations, the European Union, and NATO met in Vancouver to discuss improvements to UN peacekeeping operations and secure new pledges from UN member states.

At the conference, Canada announced the launch of the Elsie Initiative on Women in Peace Operations.2 Named after the trailblazing feminist Elsie MacGill, this initiative will join Canada and the UN in partnership with other interested member states to address the obstacles to placing more uniformed women in peace operations.3 While member states have committed to a target contribution of 15 percent female personnel, currently uniformed female peacekeepers make up only around 3 percent of troops deployed. Often, this dearth of women peacekeepers reflects the lack of women in the national militaries of troop contributing countries. The Elise Initiative represents a practical, innovative measure by an active member of the peacekeeping community to address this fundamental deficit and advance gender inclusion.

The Elsie Initiative members will develop a systematic approach to deploying more women in peace operations. Through tailored technical support, the initiative aims to help troop contributing countries recruit and retain female soldiers. It is one of the first initiatives to directly address the lack of female personnel at the deploying country level. Canada As one of the co-hosts of the 2017 UN Peacekeeping ministerial, the United States is in a strong position to partner in the work of the Elsie Initiative. By so doing, it can entrench the concept of gender parity in its current UN peacekeeping training programs and deployments and better lead knowledge-sharing efforts with partner militaries. The Elsie Initiative also gives the United States an opportunity to reinforce partnerships that enhance global security while bolstering its leadership in gender parity and UN reform. There is bipartisan recognition of the fiscal and strategic value of UN peace operations in achieving US national security and foreign policy objectives.5

contributed an initial $15 million to establish the initiative and pledged an additional $6 million to assist UN missions in supporting and leveraging women’s contributions within peace operations.4

The Presidential Memo of September 28, 2015, noted that UN peace operations are one of the most meaningful mechanisms for international burden-sharing to address the threat of violent extremist groups, human trafficking, endemic diseases, and mass flows of refugees and displaced persons.6 The 2018 National Defense Strategy builds upon this memo, highlighting the value of international partnerships as the backbone of collective security, particularly the value of strengthening alliances and attracting new partners to share the burden of global security.7 Efforts such as the Elsie initiative to improve the effectiveness of peace operations will directly benefit US national interests by strengthening alliances and enabling recipient countries to take an increasing role in providing for collective and regional security.

Background

UN peacekeeping operations play a vital role in maintaining international peace and security. Currently, over 100,000 UN personnel from 125 countries are deployed in 15 missions.8 This makes peace operations the largest deployed military force in the world. While the annual budget for peacekeeping is approximately US$6.8 billion, this amounts to less than 0.5 percent of global military spending. Thus peacekeeping operations are by far the most cost-effective method for intervening in conflict and postconflict countries.

The 2017 Defense Ministerial Conference focused on what it called the “3Ps”: pledges, planning, and performance. It was an effort to chart progress from the 2016 defense ministerial held in London, facilitate pledges from member states to fill key capacity gaps such as rapid deployment units and helicopters, and to increase the UN’s capacity to plan and undertake peace operations.9 Canada in particular focused on increasing women’s participation in security forces and peacekeeping operations.

To be most effective, peace operations—and armed forces in general—should strive for gender representation that reflects the composition of their country’s populations. Female peacekeepers provide different perspectives on protection, peacebuilding, intelligence gathering, and early warning. Having female peacekeepers allows the mission to connect with women in conflict-affected communities, who often bear the brunt of violence, including conflict-related sexual violence, and may also curb sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers.

The role of women in peacekeeping and peacebuilding was highlighted in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace, and Security. Since then, seven other UN resolutions have addressed engaging women in conflict resolution.10 Despite this apparent support, the UN has struggled to implement these resolutions internally within the UN structure as well as externally in deployed operations. Key challenges include lack of funding, political will, and available uniformed female personnel.11 The 3 percent of UN peacekeepers that are women are largely employed in supporting roles.12 At the current rate of increase, it would take 37 years to reach the five-year target that the UN Security Council set in 2015: to double the number of uniformed women deployed in UN peacekeeping operations.13

Very few women serve in the police and militaries of the countries that contribute to peace operations. Several of the core troop and police contributing countries, such as Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, have an evolving but limited culture of women in the security services.14 When asked to deploy women troops or police, these countries fall far short of the target percentages, despite their best efforts. Recent Department of Peacekeeping Operations figures show that only eighteen of all the troop contributing countries reached the target of 15 percent deployment of women that was set at the 2016 defense ministerial. Fifty countries sent only female police officers, and forty sent no women at all. Western countries may have slightly higher percentages of women. For example, in October 2017 women made up roughly 16 percent of the US army. However, Western countries contribute far fewer soldiers to peace operations, some none at all.

Even when women police and soldiers are present, UN missions have struggled to leverage their participation effectively. Female peacekeepers may be given gender-specific jobs such as teaching women self-defense or conducting classes on sexual violence and HIV/AIDS. Additionally, women officers are often confined to more administrative roles or not given the same consideration as their male colleagues—despite having the same qualifications. This restriction limits both the strategic impact women can have in peacekeeping operations and the credibility of gender equality efforts within missions. Yet female peacekeepers have proven themselves to be just as effective as male peacekeepers, perhaps more so. For example, the Indian AllFemale Formed Police Unit that was deployed to Liberia, from 2007 to 2016, was so effective and professional that then Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf specifically requested they provide her security detail.15 As the Indian contingent’s commander in Liberia, Colonel Madubala Bala also noted, “When the local women see the female peacekeepers, they get inspired by them—[They see] ladies can perform the same role as male counterparts.” In fact, when the all-female unit arrived, 6 percent of Liberia’s security sector was made up of women; that number has since jumped to 17 percent, surpassing many more developed nations.16

The Elsie Initiative has been criticized for perpetuating a pattern of developed countries leading policy and financing while troops from the global south serve in increasingly dangerous contexts. Monique Cuillerier, a Canadian representative with the Women, Peace, and Security Network, observed, “It’s hard to see how Canada can actually fulfill many of their recently announced ‘Women, Peace, and Security’ priorities if Canadian peacekeepers are sitting on the sidelines.”17

It is important to highlight the differing commitments and policy influence of the global north and south in UN peacekeeping. However, these critiques should not detract from the important goals of the Elsie Initiative. The initiative’s focus on inclusivity, sharing of peacekeeping best practice, and financial and training assistance between nations may help distribute the burdens of peacekeeping but these efforts should not serve as a substitute for contributing troops to peace operations.

Having done more than any other state to partner with and build the capacity of troop contributing countries, the United States should ally with Canada in its efforts to achieve gender parity in peace operations. Past US efforts included the Africa Contingency Operations Training & Assistance (ACOTA) program and the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), which focus on building recipient countries’ capacity to become active contributors to regional security and their own. Like these, the Elsie Initiative will enable countries to draw upon resources to make them more effective security providers.

Policy Recommendations for the  United States18

The United States is in an ideal position to leverage its existing expertise to support efforts to integrate women into the military and into peace operations. Below are several ways it could support and augment its current initiatives:

Promote the Value of Female Peacekeepers. Female peacekeepers make a peace operation more effective. Peacekeepers likely understand the value of protecting women and listening to their concerns but may not yet understand the value of deploying female peacekeepers. Training could emphasize the utility of female peacekeepers conducting body searches on women, engaging with the female population, and investigating instances of sexual assault and supporting survivors. These benefits should be highlighted as an addition to the general benefit of having a well-trained, capable soldier regardless of gender. Such training should be interactive, providing space for male soldiers to ask questions and address concerns, and could decrease the likelihood that female soldiers are relegated to menial or administrative tasks. Men and women, boys and girls will experience conflict differently, necessitating a gender lens. Peacekeepers’ ability to identify and address these conflict factors enhance their effectiveness and the quality of the peace they are able to support.

Continue to Support Current US Training Efforts. USsupported peacekeeper training should be gender sensitive and include not just training on sexual exploitation and abuse but also the role gender plays in conflict. Additionally, peacekeeper training should continue to include skills such as conflict analysis (including gender analysis), mediation, and negotiation. Training could be jointly conducted with civilian staff to encourage understanding of perspectives across components. Such skills allow peacekeepers to avoid highly masculine military-based approaches and craft inclusive and therefore more sustainable approaches to resolving tensions on the ground.19

Add Value Directly to Troop Contributing Countries. The United States deploys specialized trainers and equipment, ensuring that forces receiving US support and training can become effective, professional, and contribute to the efficacy of peace operations. This expertise could be leveraged to support increased deployment of female soldiers from partner countries. Best practices  may include design and logistical advice on dedicated facilities for ablutions and hygiene in austere conditions. It may also include policy advice on advancement and leave to ensure that women with families are able to deploy and will benefit from the experience as much as men do.

Lead by Example. The United States should commit to deploying an increased number of female US military and police personnel to UN peace operations. This can be accomplished most simply by ensuring that the current limited number of staff officers deployed to force headquarters have adequate female representation. Such deployments provide US women  unique skills development opportunity while setting an example for other countries.

Share Lessons and Expertise. The United States has a diverse array of programs already in operation domestically as well as in partnership with other nations that could inform the effective, efficient inclusion of women in peace operations. Collecting these best practices and lessons learned and sharing them with troop contributing countries would be an easy, effective way of increasing their capacity to integrate women. Particularly valuable would be information to help military leadership begin integration without enforcing stereotypes. For example, the US military can provide best practices for the recruitment and retention of females, help with reform of  personnel sections to accommodate common life milestones such as marriage and childbirth, and revising gendered standards for physical capabilities to ensure that what is being measured is what really counts in peace operations.

Troop contributing countries may have limited experience in deploying women to austere living conditions in potentially very remote communities. Female troops may require separate considerations. More conservative nations may have further cultural needs that may affect the appropriate deployment of female officers. Mobile and temporary operating bases—which are becoming more common, especially in the more robust missions—may also need to be altered to accommodate women. The US has mission design and planning expertise in deploying female troops that it can share for the benefit of all countries.

Play the Long Game. Integrating women into the militaries of troop contributing countries and then into peacekeeping forces is vitally important for ensuring the best possible mission results. These efforts will take time. Rather than rushing to promote women to positions of authority or into new roles without proper training, there should be a gradual increase over a five- to ten-year period, addressing all levels from recruit to field grade officers and senior noncommissioned officers. These soldiers need career management and mentorship to ensure that male colleagues do not elbow them out.

The United States has a strong interest in collective security and regional capacity. US support to peacekeeper training has improved the effectiveness of peacekeepers from dozens of countries in conflicts around the world. Deepening this support to ensure that troop contributing countries are able to recruit and retain female soldiers—thereby making peacekeeping forces more inclusive and effective—is a logical next step in improving allies’ abilities to contribute to global security.

References

  1. Initiated at the 2015 Leadership Summit on Peacekeeping hosted in Washington, D.C., the first UN Peacekeeping Defense Ministerial took place in London in 2016. The 2017 conference in Vancouver is the second such conference.
  2. Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, “The Elsie Initiative on Women in Peace Operations,” November 15, 2017.
  3. Gender has long been a focus of Canadian foreign policy and an opportunity for Canada to leverage its expertise and act as a policy entrepreneur. By undertaking the Elsie Initiative, Canada is enacting several recommendations on gender-responsive peacekeeping from the 2015 Global Study on Women, Peace and Security, the HighLevel Independent Panel on Peace Operations, and Security Council Resolution 2242.
  4. Government of Canada, “UN Peacekeeping Defense Ministerial,” website, 2017.
  5. Christopher Holshek, “America Needs Peacekeeping Missions More Than Ever,” Foreign Policy (November 10, 2015).
  6. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “United States

Support to United Nations Peace Operations,” Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, September 28, 2015.

  • U.S. Department of Defense, “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge,” 2018.
  • UN Peacekeeping, “Data,” web page, 2017.
  • UN News Centre, “Largest Gathering of Defence Ministers Dedicated to UN Peacekeeping to Kick Off in Vancouver,” November 13, 2017.
  • The following UN Security Council Resolutions are considered part of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda: 1325 (2000); 1820 (2009); 1888 (2009); 1889 (2010); 1960 (2011); 2106 (2013); 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
  • For more on this, see Kathleen Kuehnast and Shannon Zimmerman, “No Will; No Way: Women, Peace, and Security in Peacekeeping Operations,” Peace & Stability Operations Journal Online 3, no. 1 (2012).
  • UN Women, “Keeping the Peace in an Increasingly Militarized

World,” In: A Global Study on the Implementation of United Nations

Security Council Resolution 1325 (New York: United Nations, 2015).

  1. Joint Statement by Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka and Pramila Patten on the launch of the Elsie Initiative, November 16, 2017, accessed

February 2, 2018,   http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2017/11/ joint-statement-by-phumzile-mlambo-ngcuka-and-pramila-patten-onthe-launch-of-the-elsie-initiative.

  1. Bangladesh only allowed women to join the military after 2003           Fellows and only began recruiting women in 2013. India has had some success with women in peacekeeping, deploying the UN’s first all-female peacekeeping force of 105 Indian policewomen, who deployed to Liberia. Currently, the number one contributor to UN peace operations, Ethiopia, is an exception in this regard, with roughly 16 of the soldiers it has deployed being women.
  2. Lesley J. Pruitt, The Women in Blue Helmets: Gender, Policing and the UN’s First All-Female Peacekeeping Unit (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016).
  3. UN News Centre, “Hailed as ‘Role Models,’ All-Female Indian Police Unit Departs UN Mission in Liberia,” February 12, 2016.
  4. Tonda Maccharles and Bruce Campion-Smith, “Canada to Spread its Peacekeeping Efforts Around,” Toronto Star (November 15, 2017).
  5. In some cases, these recommendations reiterate and build upon those provided by a 2011 AFRICOM study, “Study on Women in African Militaries.”
  6. Alison Milofsky, Joseph Sany, Illana Lancaster, and Jeff Krentel,

“Conflict Management Training for Peacekeepers: Assessment and Recommendations,” Special Report 411 (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, August 2017).

By Velomahanina T. Razakamaharavo, Luisa Ryan, and Leah Sherwood

United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 expressed a global commitment to the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. Many policy statements and guidance

on gender mainstreaming have followed in the 17 years since UNSCR 1325’s passage, yet peace operations on the ground appear little affected. They continue to overlook the many roles women play in conflict and conflict resolution, fail to engage fully with women’s organizations, and fail to include women fighters in reintegration and security sector reform programs.1 They even perpetrate exploitation: Sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) continues to be widespread within peace missions themselves, despite increased SEA and conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) training for operation forces.2 Further, peace operations have failed to address the more inclusive Gender, Peace and Security (GPS) agenda and the broader role gender plays in conflict dynamics. For example, while missions may seek to address the effects of conflict-related sexual violence on women and girls, they may miss similar impacts for male victims and their families.3

Improved gender training could help ameliorate this mismatch between policy rhetoric and practice. This policybrief outlines current gender training practice, identifies gaps, and recommends ways to strengthen training in order to help peace operations personnel better understand how to apply a gender lens in their missions.

Current Training Practice

The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) impacts on women and girls and the need to engage local women as agents of change, and its efforts subsequently turned to influencing gender attitudes among peacekeepers themselves.4 Training remains one of the best mechanisms available to DPKO and the Department of Field Support (DFS) to mainstream gender perspectives in peace operations.

DPKO reiterated its commitment to gender in 2010 by issuing guidance highlighting the importance of UNSCR 1325 and gender training.5 In 2014, DPKO and DFS followed up with Gender Forward Looking Strategy (2014–2018).6 The UN is attempting to integrate gender into DPKO core business areas, such as security sector reform (SSR) and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR), as well as promoting an understanding of gender among the civilian, police, and military peacekeeping forces.

Despite departmental cooperation on these initiatives, gender mainstreaming in peace operations rarely rises above an “add women and stir” approach. Nor does it extend to men and boys. And its inability to curb sexual abuses and other practices inconsistent with UN ethics and directives threatens to undermine the WPS/GPS agenda altogether. To be able to identify inefficiencies in, or problems related to, gender training in peacekeeping operations, it is necessary to understand the UN gender peacekeeping training cogwheel. This cogwheel is composed of interrelated, intertwined, complementary processes and mechanisms. Figure 1 illustrates the levels at which action for better, more integrated training ought to be directed.

aims to promote and advance gender equality through its policies on gender mainstreaming. DPKO initially sought to raise peacekeepers’ awareness of conflict-related

Figure 1: The cogwheel of UN gender peacekeeping training                                                materials is up to their training institutions and

therefore may vary widely. These institutions may also design and implement their own training modules.

Other training packages delivered inmission may also include gender elements. Missionwide sessions on civilian protection and on conduct and discipline regularly touch on gender issues. For instance, new civilian recruits must complete web-based modules on sexual harassment and SEA, which falls under the purview of conduct and discipline but also has a gender dimension due to associated power dynamics, gender roles, and gender-based violence. However, Civil Affairs, which may be responsible for civilian protection, and Conduct and Discipline, which incorporates gender elements, largely operate independently. These areas in reality significantly overlap. Yet they are

Different recipients receive gender training at different phases of deployment. Civilian staff receive standardized predeployment training via online modules and through induction that takes place in person over several days. Uniformed peacekeepers receive gender training within predeployment packages provided by their home country. Additional induction is generally provided after arrival in-mission, although the time dedicated to gender and the content may vary widely. Specialized, ad hoc training may also be provided on an “as needed” basis on, for example, gender issues and protection of civilians. As most training occurs predeployment or in-mission, headquarters staff may only receive training on an ad hoc basis.7 Finally, all members of mission leadership teams receive preselection, predeployment, and induction on gender. DPKO offers a specific course for emerging leaders, preparing them to be senior staff, which includes a gender component. However, as demonstrated by the continuing challenges in mainstreaming gender across missions, the current training is not having the desired impact.

The training that in-coming police or military officers receive depends on their country of origin. The only training DPKO HQ is responsible for is the gender component of the Core Predeployment Training Materials (CPTM).8 It covers issues such as the differences between women and men (gender versus sex), the differentiated impacts of conflict on women and girls, the importance of the WPS/GPS agenda, the Women in Peacekeeping Legal Framework, gender equality, and other conceptual issues. These materials are available to member states, troop contributing countries (TCCs), police contributing countries (PCCs), gender units working for the missions, or any entity providing training to peacekeepers. However, how these units and states choose to use the compartmentalized in training, when they

ought to be addressed at multiple levels through cross-cutting and intersectional lenses. Integrated training can help solve this problem.

Key Challenges

There are numerous challenges associated with gender training in peace operations. Table 1 offers an overview of the nature of these challenges. First, it categorizes the root causes of poor gender training outcomes. Second, it breaks gender training down into the main stages it is offered: before and during. Lastly, the table shows challenges at training design, trainer and recipient selection, and training administration. The table shows where challenges cluster and reveals opportunity for change by identifying possible synergies. The conceptual approach taken is an adaptation of conflict diagnostic approaches commonly used in the peacebuilding field.9

Predeployment Gender Training

There are four main challenges for training at the predeployment stage: compliance, relevance, quality, and access.

First, although UN-developed gender training material is provided to them, its use by TCCs and PCCs during predeployment training is voluntary. Though the DPKO has declared gender training mandatory for member states, it has no authority to enforce compliance. As a result, the quality and comprehensiveness of the training varies widely, and personnel enter UNPKO service with differing levels of gender knowledge and exposure to the WPS/GPS agenda.10

Second, TCCs and PCCs bring their own varied cultural interpretations of gender to their missions. In some cases, contributing countries may not prioritize gender issues within their domestic military and police establishments. In this environment, the trainer’s and the recipient’s existing opinions and practices related to gender relations may therefore go largely unchallenged.

Third, there is room for improvement in the quality of gender training content. For both civilians and uniformed personnel, the predeployment gender module’s generalized nature makes it a poor-quality tool for recipients. Gender training is short and presented in passive learning environments, neither of which is conducive to developing understanding of complex ideas.

Finally, the training given to existing leadership or emerging leaders before deployment is not gender training per se; it is leadership training with a gender component. This difference is subtle but significant because gender training ought to generate comprehension of the WPS/GPS agenda. In practice, leadership training tends to outline UNSCR 1325 and provide checklists to implement it. Largely generic, nonmission-specific training on gender does not support mission leadership of gender mainstreaming or present a gender lens for understanding the conflict to which they are deployed. In addition, UN volunteers (nationally and internationally engaged) and national staff, who are vital to peace operations, often are overlooked in predeployment training.

In-Mission Gender Training

In-mission training challenges are present in training design, provision, accountability, and prioritization.

The limited capacity for gender training means that it often does not extend beyond the generic level. A lack of facilitators ensures that brief, superficial, siloed gender training will continue.11 Additionally, the staff who are available for designing and delivering training have varying degrees of expertise in gender issues and teaching skills. The difficulty

Table 1. Gender Training Problems: (Q) (I) (P) (T) (C) 
 DesignersProvidersRecipientsAdministration
Predeployment(Q), (C)(I), (Q), (C), (P)(Q), (C), (P)(Q), (I), (C), (T)
In-mission(Q), (T), (C), (P)(I), (Q), (P), (T)(Q), (C), (P)(Q), (T), (I), (P)
Categories: (Q) Quality Varied level of excellence, consistency, and fragmentation (of units, departments, and trainers) (P) People Mission leadership teams, gender advisors, future leaders (T) Time Physical time to complete task within budget and with resources allotted (C) Cultural Biases, lack of information and awareness, stereotypes, prejudices (I)              Institutional HQ, UN 

in translating concepts like gender into practical training was identified by the Integrated Training Service (ITS), which is responsible for periodic needs assessments to identify training required to implement UNSCR mandates, including UNSCR 1325. ITS’s 2013 report identified gender training as a priority, stating that more “understanding [is needed]of how to integrate cross-cutting issues like gender into work” and that gender concepts need to be “broken down into components so individual staff members understand the meaning of protection of civilians and how it relates to his or her job function.”12

The development of training materials and training itself have to compete with enormous workload demands that many staff face in-mission in difficult contexts. Uniformed staff may be deployed for only six-month periods, so there is limited time to learn new ways of analyzing social contexts and turnover is incredibly high. Yet gender training recipients need time to internalize and apply concepts. The 30- to 60-minute induction sessions are inadequate, for example, to explain that gender is not synonymous with “women’s issues.” It is also not enough time to internalize how to apply the gender lens, especially when other messaging, such as acknowledging that male staff may engage sex workers, contradicts it. As personnel arrive in-mission with varying levels of knowledge, effective gender training in-mission is essential.

Mission Leadership Teams (MLTs) have myriad competing demands to contend with, and gender issues may not seem to be the most pressing. Especially in ongoing conflicts, stopping active fighting and bringing the main parties to the negotiation table understandably are likely to receive highest priority. A comprehensive understanding of gender as an analytical tool has progressed but slowly, further hampered by those who perceive it as a development issue that can be taken up once the immediate crisis has passed.

However, a gender lens strengthens and complements the traditional security lens, by ensuring, for example, that women participate in peace processes or that appropriate provision is made for understanding how the conflict may be affecting women/girls and men/boys differently. Fostering an understanding of gender and the use of gender as a lens for analyzing unfolding conflicts would help UN peacekeeping staff identify vulnerabilities and opportunities in conflict and postconflict contexts. Highly specialized, contextspecific training should be provided to the MLT so they can incorporate gender into their own management strategies and ensure that gender training is a mission priority. In the context of recent cuts to mission budgets for dedicated gender activities and staff, this is particularly important.

Ways Forward

  1. General recommendations to improve UNPKO gender training:
    1. Gender training must be more responsive to the educational background, experience, and cultural backgrounds of recipients but also better reflect the cultural sensitivities of countries where the missions operate. Although gender training must meet requirements set by the UN, it should be presented in culturally relevant ways.
    1. Experiential learning ought to be applied in gender training. The use of scenarios, role-plays, and opportunities for discussion and debate will foster applicable, practical understandings of gender. It is vital to leverage new tools and pedagogy to convey concepts in digestible and useful ways. A Behavior Change Communication (BCC) approach could strengthen internalization of the GPS framework among UN staff.13 BCC envisages social change and individual change as two sides of the same coin.14 A BCC approach can support gender training as it focuses on the implementation of advocacy programs, communication techniques, and similar areas of best practice. Modifying recipients’ behavior is also a goal of gender training, so linking them could be helpful.
    1. Opportunities for those leading gender training in-mission to participate in academic conferences and other settings should be encouraged so that trainers stay abreast of the latest thinking on applying gender in conflict and postconflict contexts.
    1. Training must also address the experiences of men and boys so that gender is more robustly understood and not confined to “women’s issues.”
    1. The WPS/GPS agenda must be translated into accessible, practical knowledge that highlights its importance. Much of current training is conceptual.
  2. Recommendations to improve in-mission gender training:
    1. Context-specific gender training should be developed that encompasses gender dynamics in the host country, gendered aspects of the conflict, and how to apply an analytical lens to appropriate, real scenarios.
    1. The silos that surround UN units for the protection of civilians and conduct and discipline should be broken down during training to emphasize gender’s cross-sectional nature. While civilian protection training should be conducted by content experts, gender teams could contribute to discussions on the utility of a gender lens when assessing threats to civilians or opportunities for peacebuilding, for instance.
    1. Targeted training should be developed for all categories of actors and should be cross-cutting, covering all aspects of gender (e.g., SEA, gender equality,

SGBV).

  • Military and civilian training should be combined so that both share an understanding of challenges and opportunities related to gender across the spectrum of mission activities.
    • Training evaluation should be central to the UN, member states, and training institutions.15 Such evaluation will help determine training effectiveness but also identify opportunities to strengthen training and determine best practice.
    • Senior mission leadership, and the MLT in particular, should be given context-specific gender briefs before deployment. These briefs should be interactive and generate actionable plans on how to integrate a gender perspective into their team’s workstream.

Gender is a vital analytical tool for UN peacekeepers. Broader, more adept employment of a gender lens would contribute to better understanding of conflict dynamics in their areas of operation. It would enable them to identify vulnerabilities and challenges in early warning, protection of civilians, and peacebuilding. Currently, gender is still underused and poorly understood in missions, where personnel may see it is a lesser priority in the face of active conflict or as a development issue that other UN agencies and partners can take up at a later date. More effective training can deepen peacekeepers’ understanding of gender and how to use it as a tool in their everyday work. This brief has recommended improvements to gender training at the staff level and at the mission leadership level in order to ensure that a gender lens becomes an entrenched, critical element of the peacekeeping skill set.

References

  1. Robert Muggah, Security and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Dealing with Fighters in the Aftermath of War (London/New York: Routledge, 2008).
  2. Stephen Moncrief, “Military Socialization, Disciplinary Culture, and Sexual Violence in UN Peacekeeping Operations,” Journal of Peace Research 54, no. 5 (2017), pp. 715–30.
  3. Élise Féron, “Support Programs for Male Survivors of Conflict-

Related Sexual Violence,” in Ronald E. Anderson, ed., Alleviating World Suffering: The Challenge of Negative Quality of Life (Cham: Springer, 2017), pp. 335–47.

  • Comfort Lamptey, “Gender Training in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations,” Gender and Peacebuilding in Africa Occasional Papers, no. 5 (Cape Town/Nairobi: Pambazuka Press, 2012).
  • DPKO/DFS Guidelines: Integrating a Gender Perspective into the Work of the United Nations Military in Peacekeeping Operations (New York: UN, 2010).
  • UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Department of Field Support, DPKO/DFS Gender Forward Looking Strategy 2014– 2018 (New York: United Nations, 2014).
  • For example, no specific gender training was provided to HQ staff in 2017.
  • United Nations Peacekeeping Resource Hub, “DPKO-DFS Core Predeployment Training Materials (CPTM 2017) for United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: CPTM Introduction,” UN website, 2017.
  • See Conflict Prevention and Post-Conflict Reconstruction Network,

Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment Handbook, (September, 2005)

  1. The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces

(DCAF) and the Partnership for Peace Consortium (PfPC), PfPC

SSRWG and EDWG Handbook on Teaching Gender in the Military

  1. Lamptey, “Gender Training in UNPKO,” p. 18
  2. Aïssata Athie and Sarah Taylor, UN Peacekeeping: Where Is the Gender Expertise? (New York: IPI Global Observatory, 2017).
  3. Shanthi Kalatthil, John Langlois, and Adam Kaplan, Towards a

New Model: Media and Communication in Post-Conflict and Fragile

States (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, Communication for Governance & Accountability Program, Development Communication Division, External Affairs, 2008), p. 54.

  1. Communication for Development: Strengthening the Effectiveness of the United Nations (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Labour Organization, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the World Health Organization, 2011), p.7.
  2. Alberto Cutillo, Deploying the Best: Enhancing Training for United Nations Peacekeepers (New York: International Peace Institute, 2013).