The 25th anniversary of UN Resolution 1325 calls for a reflection on the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and on strategies to enhance women’s participation in all phases of peace processes. Despite the historic breakthrough achieved with this Resolution, the involvement of women in conflict prevention and mediation remains limited.
How Technology Can Empower Women Peace Mediators
Istituto Affari Internazionali
The Guide to empower women’s businesses in transition contexts in Africa is designed to advise practitioners, national and international development actors, and anyone supporting women’s entrepreneurship, on simple, targeted, and straightforward approaches to plan, implement, and assess interventions that aim to assist women entrepreneurs to pivot their businesses for resilience in times of tumultuous change, reduce risk, bounce back, and seize new opportunities.
Reading of the Week: Guide to Empower Womens Businesses in Transition Contexts in Africa
African Development Bank
Despite the existence of widely recognized international frameworks, a gendered approach to addressing transnational organized crime is generally lacking. That women are often the victims of organized crime —human trafficking is a good example— is a widely recognized phenomenon. But responses to organized crime often overlook women’s roles within criminal groups, and how they are impacted by illicit economies in ways that are different from men. They also fail to notice how women are agents in building effective responses to organized crime.
The missing piece of the puzzle. Women and organized crime
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Next year marks 25 years since the adoption of landmark United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). A persistent question in preparing for this event is how Security Council members that support WPS can make sure their efforts lead to changes on the ground. This is central in an era of pushback against women’s rights and gender equality in many parts of the world.
Reading of the Week: Time to Push for Next Step on Women, Peace and Security: Ensuring Positive Impact for Women in Conflict
International Peace Institute
In rural South Sudan, markets for food, labour and land are expanding, and women’s workloads are increasing. In the twentieth century, most rural women had two main labour burdens: they produced food for home consumption on family farms; and at home provided life-giving labour, like child-rearing, emotional support, cooking and cleaning. These two labour burdens were unpaid. But now, they have a third labour burden.
Reading of the Week: The triple burden: women selling their labour in South-Sudan
Rift Valley Institute
L'Indice 2021/2022 sur les femmes, la paix et la sécurité classe la Mauritanie au 157e rang sur 170 pays, soit le 13e pire rang mondial, en termes de statut et d'autonomisation des femmes. Une des raisons importantes en est la généralisation de la violence basée sur le genre rendue possible en partie par les tabous sociétaux et la faiblesse du système de protection et d'application de la loi
Bien que contre lusage de la force physique sur les femmes, les Mauritaniens estiment que la violence conjugale est une affaire privée
Afro Barometer
Gender equality continues to be elusive in many parts of life in countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Although there is widespread support for women enjoying equal rights, there has been some retrenchment on these issues in recent years
Gender Attitudes and Trends in MENA: The Effects of Working Women
Arab Barometer
In May 2023, the Saudi biomedical engineer Rayyanah Barnawi became the first Arab woman to go to space when she joined a private company’s mission to the International Space Station. Saudi Arabia has long been known for its harsh restrictions on women’s employment, but in the past 15 years it has raced to offer women more chances to work outside the home.
Working Women Are Changing Saudi Arabia
Foreign Affairs
When the Sustainable Development Goals were agreed in 2015, governments ambitiously committed to achieving gender equality as both a standalone and crosscutting objective. Almost a decade later, alarming funding trends are surfacing that leave transformative ambitions for gender equality and women’s empowerment at risk.
Ringing the alarm bell? What recent ODA trends indicate for gender equality
ODI
The year 2023 was a crucial year for the Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD) project. It marked the transition to the SWEDD+ expansion phase, which included the integration of three new countries and the strengthening of funding in two countries.
SWEDD Annual Report
UNFPA
The representation of women, particularly in peace processes, often excludes women’s voices, their shared experiences, and their contributions. This can be seen in the limited recognition of women’s contributions in historical narratives and the frequent portrayal of women solely as victims and vulnerable.
HIDDEN FIGURES: Women navigating a culture of exclusion in peace and conflict resolution processes
Rift Valley Institute
By 2030, more than half of the world’s extreme poor will live in countries characterized by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) (World Bank 2020e). Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, 20 million more people are now living in extreme poverty in FCV countries
Increasing Gender Equality in Fragile, Conflict, and Violence Settings
World Bank Group
In Mauritius, one in four women have experienced some form of gender-based violence (GBV) (Government of Mauritius, 2021; United Nations Mauritius, 2021). According to Statistics Mauritius (2020), reported cases of GBV spiked at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown in March-May 2020, jumping five-fold compared to the same period in 2018 and 2019
Mauritians rank gender-based violence as top womens-rights issue for government to address
Afro Barometer
The MENA region has one of the lowest female labor-participation rates in the world, and the lowest share of women in the total labor force, despite significant progress in reducing gender inequality in health and education. This situation has contributed to the so-called “MENA gender-equality paradox”
Trade and the Persistence of the MENA Gender-Equality Paradox
Policy Center for the New South
A wave of protests rocked Kenya in January, with thousands of people taking to the streets in support of the independence of the judiciary and women’s rights. With hundreds of demonstrations reported throughout the country, January marked a new record high in the number of protest events recorded by ACLED since July 2023.
Women and Lawyers Demonstrate Nationwide
ACLED
This Policy Brief delves into the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda in the Euro-Mediterranean region, particularly focusing on the progress and potential of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). The paper addresses the evolving dynamics in the region and the importance of utilizing the WPS Agenda as an inclusive framework for stability and conflict resolution. It critically examines the implementation of UNSCR 1325, highlighting the challenges and offering nuanced insights.
What about Women? Pursuing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda in the Euro-Mediterranean Region
EuroMeSCo
The 7th edition of the UfM Women Business Forum offered female entrepreneurs and women-led businesses a unique opportunity to take their businesses to the next level and was co-organised together with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) for the third time in a row. It gathered over 150 high-level attendees, regional and national stakeholders, as well as female entrepreneurs from across the MENA region.
2023 UfM-UNIDO Women Business Forum
Union for the Mediterranean 2023
The toll of armed conflict is felt heavily across civilian populations, as infrastructure is destroyed, civilians are killed, and the very social fabric of communities is unraveled. Most combatants across contexts are men, and in most wars, battle-related injuries affect men disproportionately
Unraveling the Multi-Faceted Impact of Armed Conflict on Women in the Gaza Strip
Wilson Center
Gender based violence (GBV) is a global epidemic. Deeply rooted in unequal power relations, GBV remains the most oppressive manifestation of gender inequality. It is most often perpetrated against women and girls. GBV comes in many forms, but intimate partner violence (IPV) and non-partner sexual violence remain especially pervasive across economies, cultures, ethnicities, socio-economic groups, and age groups.
Addressing Gender-Based Violence To Accelerate Gender Equality
World Bank Group
In the year 2000, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women and peace and security stressed the link between gender equality and international peace and security. The resolution underscored the importance of the full and equal participation of women in all efforts towards the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, including UN peace operations.
Women in multilateral peace operations 2023: what is the state of play?
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
In 1950, approximately 128.2 million people were aged 65 and older, just 5.1 per cent of the world’s population.
Today, the world has 807.8 million older people, a sixfold increase accounting for 10 per cent of the global population. Since women outlive men by an average of 5.2 years, they comprise a greater share of older persons.
Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals The gender snapshot 2023
UN WOMEN
Over the years, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) committed as a tactic of terrorism has taken various forms, notably: forced recruitment; rape; forced marriage, pregnancy, and abortion; sexual slavery; and the use of women and girls to carry out suicide attacks. Numerous terrorist groups, including ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, Ansar Eddine, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda, are known to commit such crimes in the states where they operate. In 2016, an emerging focus on the linkages between terrorism and SGBV resulted in the UNSC’s affirmation that victims of sexual violence committed by terrorist groups should be recognised as victims of terrorism.
Time for a victim-centric approach in prosecuting sexual and gender-based violence committed by terrorists
International Center for Counter Terrorism
Liberian President George Weah declared rape a national emergency in 2020, after signing a Domestic Violence Act the previous year. Despite these steps, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls persist, perpetuated by traditional social norms as well as social dislocations and a lack of accountability as a legacy of the country’s 14-year civil war.
Gender-based violence tops womens-rights issues in Liberia; citizens say it is a criminal matter
Afro Barometer
Somalia grapples with unique cultural, societal, and structural hurdles that hinder women’s access to political processes. Despite introducing a non-legally binding quota, the most recent federal elections in 2022 saw a decline in women’s parliamentary representation. Beyond this, women’s leadership in public spaces remains inadequate at all levels. Patriarchal norms, gender stereotypes, and cultural barriers hinder women’s full participation in decision-making, with women predominantly perceived as homemakers, with caregiving responsibilities.
Enabling Womens Representation and Participation in Political Dialogues in Somalia
Rift Valley Institute
Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is a key driver of economic transformation and social inclusion in Africa. It equips young people with the skills they need to find decent work and improve their livelihoods. But TVET is not reaching its full potential, because half of the population does not have equal access.
Reading of the Week: Empowering Women and Girls through Technical and Vocational Education in Africa
African Center for Economic Transformation
Historically, the women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda’s four pillars—prevention, protection, participation, and relief and recovery—have largely developed along separate trajectories. This has started to change with the UN Security Council’s recent progress in recognizing the link between women’s participation in peace and security and their protection, as well as the need to create “enabling environments” for women’s participation. Nonetheless, there is often a gap between international frameworks on participation and protection and the realities experienced by women, especially in conflict-affected contexts.
Full, Equal, Meaningful, and Safe: Creating Enabling Environments for Womens Participation in Libya
International Peace Institute
This paper was given as a keynote address at a convening for one of CODESRIA’s flagship institutes—the gender institute. The CODESRIA gender institutes have been running for twenty-eight years, with 428 direct beneficiaries. My engagement with CODESRIA gender institutes has occurred across three different periods and different thematic areas.
African Feminist Epistemic Communities
Codesria Bulletin
Many non-state armed groups use forced marriage during armed conflict. This practice has been documented across all geographic regions, in every decade since the 1940s, and across armed groups with many different ideologies. Yet while policymakers, scholars, and practitioners recognize forced marriage as an important form of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), there are no frameworks for conceptualizing the frequency and range of forms of forced marriage that occur in conflict.
Forced Marriage by Non-state Armed Groups: Frequency, Forms, and Impact
International Peace Institute
Many non-state armed groups use forced marriage during armed conflict. This practice has been documented across all geographic regions, in every decade since the 1940s, and across armed groups with many different ideologies. Yet while policymakers, scholars, and practitioners recognize forced marriage as an important form of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), there are no frameworks for conceptualizing the frequency and range of forms of forced marriage that occur in conflict.
Forced Marriage by Non-state Armed Groups: Frequency, Forms, and Impact
International Peace Institute
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) must adopt a flexible Human Security (HS) approach that can adapt to changing security concerns and addresses the concerns of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) community. Failure to address these concerns could put NATO at risk of falling short of its aspirations for both WPS and HS, potentially jeopardizing the safety of NATO citizens during active conflicts or crises.
Forward Together: Women, Peace, & Security & Human Security at NATO
Stimson Center
This paper contributes to the scholarship on gender and migration through empirical insights into motherhood while in transit and smuggling. It explores how undocumented, West African migrant mothers experience and navigate the temporal and spatial confinement of the Tunisian–Libyan borderlands, border enforcement and counter-smuggling policies confining them and their children to the limbo of indefinite waiting, danger, and uncertainty that they can, however, address through smuggling journeys.
Reading of the week: A Mothers Choice - Undocumented motherhood, waiting and smuggling in the Tunisian-Libyan borderlands
Danish Institute for International Studies
En 2000, le Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies a adopté la résolution 1325, sa première résolution thématique sur les femmes, la paix et la sécurité, qui reconnait notamment le rôle crucial des missions de maintien de la paix dans la protection des civils contre les violences sexuelles liées aux conflits (VSLC).
Nous Devons Rompre le Silence DUne Manière ou DUne Autre: Prévenir les violences sexuelles liées aux conflits dans les opérations de maintien de la paix de lONU
Center for Civilians in Conflict