Part PP

Unfortunately, what the statistics miss is the persistent gap between how men and women actually contribute to peace processes. Even if women are present at the table, which is still too rare, men are the ones who almost always decide when and how to make peace. Therefore, today I would like to talk briefly about why we need to do more to promote not mere participation but meaningful and effective participation, with a stress on the word “effective”.

Let me start by describing the benefits of women’s participation. As we have heard — and, again, these are the same studies all of us cite — peace processes are more likely to succeed when women are involved. One study of 40 peace processes since 1989 found that, the more women influenced a negotiation, the higher the likelihood that an agreement would be reached. Another study found that the likelihood of a peace agreement lasting more than two years increased by 20 per cent when women were involved. Why is that? In part, it is because women often demand results. When negotiations stall, as they inevitably do, women’s groups can help push for talks to resume and press the parties to reach consensus. Women tend to demand more than what is politically expedient or in their narrow self-interest. Again, this is on the basis

of limited data, because of the limited participation, but women’s groups are known for lobbying for causes that do go beyond gender, including for human rights, transitional justice and reconciliation to be addressed in peace agreements. Those are causes that are all too often deferred or ignored when women are not there.

Here I will turn to the example of the Philippines. In negotiations between the Government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a group seeking greater autonomy for the country’s south, women were active at every level, from working groups to serving as lead negotiators. After negotiators reached an impasse in 2010, the women participants called for a national dialogue that generated new ideas to get the parties talking again. When violence broke out after the signing of the 2012 framework agreement, women helped organize protests calling for the parties to get back to the table.

Or let us consider the Colombia peace process, where up to one-third of the participants at the table were women. Those female representatives lobbied relentlessly so that those who committed sexual violence in the conflict would not be eligible for pardons. And they advocated for economic support to help women access new development opportunities in rural areas.

But these examples are still the exceptions. In Syria, South Sudan and Yemen, men are the ones making decisions, even as we sit here in negotiations. Maybe it is time to heed the famous aphorism that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Too often, what gets labelled as women’s participation is just checking a box — a perfunctory meeting of male negotiators with female members of civil society. This matters not just for the content of a peace agreement itself; when children see peace accords signed by groups of men, the message received is that the men are the ones who matter in affairs of State and who are empowered to end conflicts. We do not want young girls internalizing that message. We members of the Security Council need to demand that women have the ability to influence the course of negotiations, not just because women deserve it — which of course they do — but because when women are effective and meaningful participants, we have a better chance at achieving the mission of the Security Council, which is preserving peace and security.