Gender Machineries, Peace and Human Security

In the aftermath of the United Nations First World Conference on Women which took place in 1975, national governments committed to, and actually did set up gender machineries in their respective countries. In Africa, these machineries which were initially known as the National Councils for Women and Development transformed into what is now called Ministries of Gender and Development, or Ministries of Women and Children's Affairs, or Women's Bureaus, etc. Though there are variances in actual nomenclature from country to country, the commonality between these machineries lie in their mandate to ensure women's issues, and in some cases children, are adequately mainstreamed in particularly public policy formulation and implementation. In addition, gender focal points or desks were also appointed or set up in other line ministries and regional structures such as AU, ECOWAS, ECCAS, SADC, etc to serve as liaisons between the gender/women's ministries and host institutions in ensuring effective gender mainstreaming in policy, programme and project planning, implementation and evaluation.

While this is a laudable achievement, gender machineries across board face similar challenges. They are understaffed and under-resourced, have low visibility, and are inadequately supported with the necessary political will to back the implementation and operationalization of their mandates. Furthermore, their mandates are so broad --cutting across a number of fields-- and welfare-centric such that it does not include a specific focus on specialized fields such as peace and security. Thus most gender machineries on the continent lack the necessary information/knowledge and skills to engage in peace and security systems and processes --except in countries that have recently undergone or are emerging from violent conflicts/wars and therefore are somewhat compelled to focus on this area. Even in such instances, a number of capacity gaps have been identified and acknowledged. It is these that WIPSEN-Africa seeks to address through this programmatic thrust which is intended to:
  1. Provide gender machineries topical information/data on peace and security situations on the continent.
  2. Build/strengthen gender machineries capacities to mainstream peace and security in their core functions.
  3. Enhance the levels of collaboration between gender and defence (security) machineries on the one hand and among gender machineries on the other hand.
  4. Promote the national implementation of international and regional instruments/mechanisms such as United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.

 

Programs > Core Programs > Women in Leadership & Decision-making on Peace and Human Security