Reconstruction and Peacebuilding

The Reconstruction and Peacebuilding theme focuses on the application of a gender perspective to peacebuilding. The response of local, national, and international systems to women’s priorities in post-conflict situations can significantly impact stability and development.

The realisation of women’s right to full participation in preventing, resolving and recovering from conflict, is critical to building sustainable peace and the fulfilment of human security. Furthermore, the response of local, national and international systems to women’s priorities in post-conflict situations, can significantly impacts the stability and development of communities.

The engagement of women in early stages of peacemaking can increase gender analysis in post-conflict planning, lead to improved outcomes for women, and enhance their capacity to participate in longer-term peacebuilding. However, women’s rights and concerns should not be dependent on the presence of women in peace processes. Systems must be in place to ensure their inclusion is standard operating procedure.

In SCR 1325, the Security Council recognises that addressing the unique needs of women and girls during post-conflict reconstruction requires integrating a gender perspective at all stages (1325,OP8). The Security Council acknowledges the need to counter negative societal attitudes regarding women’s equal capacity for involvement, and calls for the promotion of women’s leadership and support for women’s organizations (1889,OP1). In addition, the Security Council requests training on the protection, rights and needs of women in all peacebuilding measures (1325,OP6).

To achieve this, the Security Council tasks the Secretary-General to report on challenges and make recommendations relevant to the participation of women and gender mainstreaming in peacebuilding and recovery efforts (1888,OP19). In response, the Secretary-General issued a report on women’s participation in peacebuilding in 2010. The report details the challenges obstacles women must confront in participating in recovery and peacebuilding efforts, and advocates for a Seven-Point Action Plan to respond to these challenges.


First, the plan calls to increase women’s engagement in peace processes and to address gender issues in the context of peace agreements. Secondly, the plan urges for the inclusion of gender expertise at senior levels in the UN’s mediation support activities. Thirdly, the plan notes that, while the international community cannot control the gender composition of the negotiating parties, it must investigate strategies for the inclusion of more women. Fourthly, the plan calls for the establishment of mechanisms to ensure that negotiating parties engage with women’s civil society organisations. The Action Plan’s fifth commitment involves increasing the proportion of women decision makers in post-conflict governance institutions. The sixth point addresses rule of law, emphasising the importance of issues such as women’s access to justice and a gender perspective to legal reform. The Action Plan’s seventh commitment is concerned with women’s economic empowerment. The Action Plan’s implementation remains the challenge.

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BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: The Women of Bosnia and Herzegovina

On July 11th, Remzija Delic will see her children again. For most of them it will be a long journey home - from Austria, the Netherlands and the USA. The family left after the war but every year they return to see their mother and remember their father. He was murdered with 8000 others in 1995, in a massacre later described by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as the worst crime committed on European soil since the Second World War.

EGYPT: Egypt's Women Keep Showing Power in Protest

Female protesters continue to participate in pro-democracy demonstrations that remain deadly more than a year after President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown.

AFGHANISTAN: At NATO Summit on Afghanistan, Few Women's Voices Heard

With the US and NATO planning the departure of their forces from Afghanistan by December 2014, some Afghan women and international rights advocates are growing increasingly concerned that a decade-long focus on expanding Afghan women's rights will go with them.

AFGHANISTAN: Opinion: Don't Abandon Afghan Women

As the United States convenes the NATO summit in Chicago this weekend, the fate of Afghanistan's women is on my mind. This spring marks the 10th anniversary of the return of Afghanistan's girls to the classroom. During the Taliban era, women were denied education. Women could not work, even when they were the sole providers for their families. Under the Taliban dictatorship, it was decreed that women should be neither seen nor heard.

EGYPT: Egyptian Women Feel Excluded, Despite the Promise of the Revolution

After Egyptian women stood shoulder to shoulder with men in the protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak, many looked forward to a role in the revolution's next steps. But 15 months later, as Egyptians prepare to vote for a new president this week, rights activists complain that women are being excluded from key decisions.

SOMALIA: Somali Draft Constitution Includes Women in Country's Affairs

After two decades of civil war and being subjected to violence and unthinkable hardships, Somali women are now expected to have a voice in the country's government, Press TV reports.


If the African nation's constitution draft is passed into law, Somali women will be given 30 percent of the seats in the new Constituent Assembly and will be a part of the permanent Somali government set to take office at the end of August.

AMERICAS: 'War On Drugs' Leaves Latin american Women Lives in Ruin

“Violence associated with the ‘war on drugs' and organized crime, which includes government corruption in some countries have specific consequences for women in Latin America”, said the Chilean lawyer Patsili Toledo, member of ‘Antígona' a research group of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a specialist in the subject of femicide in the continent.

BOSNIA and HERZEGOVINA: Peace, Justice Elude Rape Victims of Bosnian War

Nearly two decades after the Bosnian War ended, thousands of Bosnian women who were victims of sexual violence are still seeking justice.

INTERNATIONAL: Hatred of Women Exists in the West as Well as in the Arab World

Misogyny has reduced women to headscarves and hymens.
'WOMEN have very little idea of how much men hate them,'' wrote Germaine Greer in The Female Eunuch. So outraged were men that wives reportedly took to concealing their copies by wrapping them in plain brown paper.

INTERNATIONAL: Why Women Are a Foreign Policy Issue

The most pressing global problems simply won't be solved without the participation of women. Seriously, guys. On a trip to Afghanistan in the summer of 2009, not long after my appointment as the U.S. State Department's ambassador at large for global women's issues, I stopped for dinner with a group of Afghan women activists in Kabul.

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