On Thursday, 26th September, the UN’s Conference Room 1 was packed
with over 25 ministers from around the world. They had accepted an
invitation by the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and UN Women to discuss
“women’s economic empowerment for peacebuilding” only a day after the
UN General Assembly (UNGA) Special Event on achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
You may wonder why that’s especially worth noting. After all, outside
of this event the UNGA week heard pleas for related causes: a post-MDG
framework that would “make the 21st century the century of women” and a post-MDG framework that would “make the 21st century the century of peace”. And these pleas echoed the proposals for respective standalone goals that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his High-Level Panel had already expressed in their visions for the post-2015 development framework.
What makes the PBC/UN Women event especially worth noting is that
discussions of the post-MDG approach to building peaceful and effective
states have typically proceeded as though the century of women and the
century of peace would take place in parallel worlds. There has been
little emphasis on the specific links between these goals and their
achievement.
We need to work to bridge this gap by emphasizing women’s important
role – and challenges – in peacebuilding and statebuilding, as well as
the need for targeted and integrated responses in the post-2015 approach
to institutions and conflict. There are at least three good reasons
why.
First, statebuilding in fragile and conflict-affected situations can provide critical opportunities to pursue gender equality. Empowering
the world’s women requires special efforts to tackle the severe and
specific challenges women face in fragile situations. Sexual and
domestic violence, economic marginalisation, and exclusion from the
decisions that determine women’s futures help explain why fragile and
conflict-affected states have made relatively slow progress on the MDGs
overall, but also have notably lagged on most of the gender-specific MDG areas.
The good news is that post-conflict situations also offer immense opportunities to “build back better”,
for example by supporting women’s participation in peace negotiations,
constitution-making and emerging political processes. In this context it
is interesting to note that about one-third of the countries with 30% or more women in parliament
are also countries that have experienced conflict, fragility or recent
transitions to democracy. Taking the example of Rwanda and Burundi, the
Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support Judy Cheng-Hopkins
highlighted during the PBC/UN Women event how such increased
participation can in turn lead to better outcomes for women, thus
transforming vicious into virtuous circles.
Second, gender equality is not only “smart economics” – it’s also smart peacebuilding and statebuilding. The
fundamental aim of statebuilding should be a state that is legitimate,
responsive and accountable to all. Tackling the marginalisation of women
and girls is a precondition for realising this vision.
What’s more, women’s empowerment can help achieve internationally
agreed peacebuilding and statebuilding goals. “Women’s political
participation is associated with lower levels of corruption, more
inclusive decision-making, greater investment in social services, job
creation for women, and family welfare”, the new Executive Director of
UN-Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka pointed out. In like manner, PBC Chair
and Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusić recalled the strong evidence
that “women’s access to land and productive assets, to jobs and markets,
results in improvements in family well-being, community stability and
poverty reduction.”
In other words, gender equality goes beyond “smart economics”. It can
strengthen key pillars of peace. Reflecting on his own country the day
before the PBC event, Finland’s Foreign Minister, H.E. Mr. Erkki
Tuomioja, affirmed these links:
“If I was asked to give one specific reason why Finland is rated in the
index of failed states as the least failed state in the world, I would
answer that it is gender equality and the empowerment of women.”
Finally, the post-2015 framework offers a historic opportunity to
realize women’s rights in fragile states and make smarter peacebuilding
and statebuilding the norm. Current approaches tend to neglect
women’s potential and priorities. “Let’s face it”, Cheng-Hopkins
proposed, “women play peacebuilding roles every day (…) Sadly though,
when negotiations get serious, when stakes get high and when money shows
up, women are pushed into the background.“ The OECD INCAF’s forthcoming
policy paper on Gender and Statebuilding aims to address this
gap by offering a set of specific recommendations to help donors
integrate a gender perspective into their work on statebuilding.
The post-2015 framework is one of the key opportunities the new INCAF
publication highlights in this regard. In the words of the President of
the UNGA, John W. Ashe, this is a “historic opportunity to define development.”
The post-MDGs can therefore also be a historic opportunity to make
women’s full participation in peacebuilding and statebuilding the norm
and the PBC declaration’s call
for “further measures to improve women’s participation during all
stages of peace processes” a reality. We can and must seize it.
Useful links
OECD work on gender equality and development
OECD work on conflict and stability
OECD work on gender
The views expressed in our blogs remain those of
the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the OECD
or its members
