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The understanding of peace we propose centers around relations of care. Networks of care present a fundamental way to bridge differences and entrenched divides and are therefore both elemental to every being’s sense of safety as well as a crucial way to establish dialogue and trust, and to transform conflict.

Women’s everyday care-work therefore is peacebuilding and must be recognized as such. This focus also allows to explain the kind of positive peace we envision when talking about feminist security: A society, in which the notion of participation is de-masculinized and the agency of women de-victimized. Instead a truly feminist interpretation of UNSCR 1325 advocates: The need for gender-neutral socialization of women and men as equal partners in the provision of caring relations, and significant investment in and upgrade of the care sector at large. Otherwise, if solely women are conditioned into caring beings the root causes of discrimination and ultimately lack of care-reception will not be tackled and security remain a prerogative for the few at the price of women’s exploitation.

Contact: Leandra Bias (KOFF/swisspeace)

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Increasing Women's Political Participation - Quotas

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Increasing Women's Political Participation - Quotas

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Women's political participation has been a success story from the WPS agenda's first 20 years. At national level worldwide, women now comprise 24.3% of parliamentarians. While still low, this is a clear increase from 11.3% in 1995.
https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership-and-political-participation/facts-and-figures
Good Practices:
Many key successes in this area have come from states including women's representation quotas in their electoral laws. Examples of countries with quotas include: Rwanda (61.3% of MPs are women), Tanzania (36% of MPs are women), Uganda (35%).
https://www.ipu.org/news/press-releases/2019-03/new-ipu-report-shows-well-designed-quotas-lead-significantly-more-women-mps

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As all other humanitarian sectors, mine action organisations are under the responsibility to protect beneficiaries from sexual exploitation and abuse by their own personnel and implementing partners. Whilst more work needs to be done to prevent and protect beneficiaries from these grave violations of ‘do no harm’, the mine action sector has been actively addressing these issues in the last several years. In addition to preventing sexual and gender-based violence, mine action programmes can be transformative and reinforce the safety of women and girls in the communities where they operate.

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Progress on women’s participation in mine action has come a long way in the last 20 years, when there were just a few women working as deminers. Now women account for around 1/5 of those working in the sector. Women can be found working in the field in all mine affected countries, either in clearance operations or in risk education and victim assistance roles.

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The mine action sector prevents violence and derogation of women’s rights through risk education, which targets women through mixed gender teams, participatory approaches, and adaptable methods to maximise access. But gender responsive risk education must also target men and boys, who make up the majority of casualties.

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Welcome to the Maison de la Paix Gender and Diversity Hub online forum on the Women Peace and Security Agenda at 20. We want to hear your contributions and thoughts on the last 20 years and the next 20.

Do you have a story to share in successfully advancing the agenda? What best practices can you share? Which obstacles or gaps remain? What would success look like for you? What needs to happen to ensure progress?

You can also see some of the lessons learned through the publications of the Maison de la Paix organisations, and our partners through the Trello board accessible here:
https://trello.com/b/LBVpYRSs/resolution-1325-at-20

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At the GCSP we have been focusing on the participation pillar of the Agenda, building on understanding of the leadership practices needed in this space for women, and also everyone seeking to develop more inclusive and effective teams and organisations.

We have seen the huge talent and commitment of women in both informal and formal sectors and endeavour to support them to gain visibility and influence.  You can see some of the lessons we have learnt in our op eds and policy briefs on the Trello Board https://trello.com/b/LBVpYRSs/resolution-1325-at-20

Going forward we would like to see more connections made to develop more holistic approaches to peace and security, and for the gendered nature of security - both the risks and responses, to be better integrated across thematic areas.  Awareness, resources and spaces for collaboration and exchange are key to this happening.

We hope that these platforms will help us to build more connections to one another's work and communities.