Gender Peace And Security And The Post

EGM/MDG/EP.2
October 2013
ENGLISH ONLY
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UN Women
In collaboration with ECLAC
Expert Group Meeting
Structural and policy constraints in achieving the MDGs for women and girls
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Mexico City, Mexico
21-24 October 2013
Gender, peace and security and the post-2015 framework1
Expert paper prepared by:
Hannah Wright
Saferworld
United Kingdom
Over the past two decades, interest in the relationship between gender, peace and security has increased dramatically, manifested in new research agendas, policy debates and development programmes in conflict-affected countries. Perhaps the most high profile development has been the passage of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 and subsequent resolutions2 on women, peace and security, and the growing movement of civil society activists advocating for their implementation. However, although debates on the shape of the post-2015 development framework include strong calls for goals on both gender equality and peace and security, few actors have explored the links between the two and asked what these may mean for the content of the framework.
Similarly, while advocates for the women, peace and security agenda call for concrete action by governments to realise its aims, little attention has been paid to whether and how the post-2015 framework may provide a vehicle for making progress on this agenda. This paper aims to respond to that challenge.
Connecting gender and conflict
A number of studies have found a strong statistical correlation between countries’ peacefulness and their levels of gender equality.3 What is unclear from this evidence is the nature of this relationship:
1

The points set out in this paper will be further elaborated in a briefing by Saferworld and Conciliation Resources, due for publication in October 2013. This paper uses ‘women, peace and security’ when referring to the UN agenda, and
‘gender, peace and

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