Prevention

Women, War, Peace and Conflict Prevention and Early Warning

Introduction

Security Council Resolution 1325 reaffirms the “important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peace-building, and stresses the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, and the need to increase their role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution.”

Preventive measures have the potential to avert disputes before they erupt into violent confrontations. The Security Council's resolution on women and peace and security underscored the need for such measures to support local women's peace initiatives for conflict resolution, and to increase women's participation, full involvement and decision-making roles in all preventive measures.

Countries with very low percentages of women in parliament and the formal labour sector, or cultures that restrict women, condone violence against them or treat women as property, are more likely to resort to armed conflict to settle disputes. Other data that may be relevant include female literacy rate, average level of female education, number of children per household, which influence women’s ability to participate in structures that may prevent war by engaging in other forms of conflict resolution.

The prevalence of the following occurrences, which may only be evident to those on the ground, indicate social discord that may result in armed conflict: gender-specific human rights violations such as rape, abductions, trafficking, domestic violence, sexual harassment, abuse by security forces, killings and disappearances of women, elections-related violence, lack of institutional prosecution of perpetrators, increased rates of prostitution and commercial sex work due to military presence, abrupt changes in gender roles, such as the imposition of restrictive laws, rewards for aggressive behavior and propaganda emphasizing hyper-masculinity, number of single female-headed households, sex-specific refugee migrations, sex-specific unemployment, sale of jewelry or other precious materials, hoarding of goods.

Intervening factors that appear to increase the likelihood of conflict include: scapegoating of women through the media by accusing them of political or cultural betrayal, engagement of women in a shadow war economy, resistance to women’s participation in peace processes and negotiations, lack of presence of women in civil society organizations and lack of women’s organizations, growth of discriminatory movements such as fundamentalism, and insensitive response by international actors.

Key Terms

Early warning

  • The UN Early Warning and Preventive Measures Workshop Definition of Early Warning: The process of collecting and analysing information for the purpose of identifying and recommending strategic options for preventive measures.
  • The OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Definition of Early Warning: Any information from any source about escalatory developments, be they slow and gradual or quick and sudden, far enough in advance in order for a national government, or an international or regional organisation to react timely and effectively, if possible still leaving them time to employ preventive diplomacy and other non-coercive and non-military preventive measures.”
  • UNIFEM’s Independent Experts on Women, War and Peace: Formal early warning systems monitor potential crisis situations, collect information and generate analyses that will give decision makers a way to assess risk and find openings for preventive action. Preventing an incipient armed conflict requires time – time to gather and analyse information, time to build political support for action and time to design and implement preventive strategies. The signs of potential conflict or resurgence are as many as the methods for collecting them. Some organizations collect and report data on human rights violations; others carry out case studies on specific conflicts or broadcast information about drought, diseases, famine, and other potential causes of conflict.
  • Thesaurus and Glossary of Early Warning and Conflict Prevention Terms, more... Early warning is “the systematic collection and analysis of information coming from areas of crisis.

Conflict Prevention

10 Principles on Conflict Prevention, from Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on Conflict Prevention, 7 June 2001. more...

International Organizations & Instruments

  • Security Council resolution 1325 encourages “all those involved in the planning for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration to consider the different needs of female and male ex-combatants and to take into account the needs of their dependents.”

  • The Namibia Platform for Action to Mainstream Gender in Multidimensional Peace Operations: “United Nations peace operations have evolved from peacekeeping, in its traditional sense, towards multidimensional peace support operations. So far, women have been denied their full role in these efforts, both nationally and internationally, and the gender dimension in peace processes has not been adequately addressed. In order to ensure the effectiveness of peace support operations, the principles of gender equality must permeate the entire mission, at all levels, thus ensuring the participation of women and men as equal partners and beneficiaries in all aspects of the peace process -- from peacekeeping, reconciliation and peace-building, towards a situation of political stability in which women and men play an equal part in the political, economic and social development of their country.” more...

UNIFEM Action & Analysis

UNIFEM has identified and engaged in several key strategies to strengthen conflict prevention mechanisms with gender perspectives. These include:

  • Developing common indicators for early warning taking into account women and gender issues, in partnership with the UN system, and especially UN Funds and Programs, NGOs, and regional and sub-regional organizations; One such project took place in the Solomon Islands , the reports for which can be found via the following links: Report 1, Report 2,  Lessons Learned, and Community-level Data.
  • Adopting measures to improve the flow of information from a variety of sources about the roles of women in peace efforts and gender-based violations;
  • Supporting fact-finding missions that take into account women and gender issues, and encourage the participation therein of local and international women's groups and advocates.

As a component of the overall Peace and Security Programme, UNIFEM conducted a two-year programme “Strengthening Information Collection and Analysis on the Situation of Women in Conflict Situations” with the goal of strengthening early warning and preventive actions in relation to peace processes. UNIFEM and UNDP BCPR also undertook a joint workshop to better integrate gender-sensitive early warning into conflict analysis. As an outcome, UNIFEM produced the briefing paper: Gender and Conflict Analysis: UNIFEM Policy Briefing Paper

Tools & Checklists

  • Department of Political Affairs Preventative Diplomacy Introduction more...

  • Forum on Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER): Conflict Analysis and Response Definition more...

  • Inclusive Security, Sustainable Peace Toolkit: Chapter on Conflict Prevention

  • International Alert and Safer World: Conflict Impact Assessment of EU Development Cooperation with APC Countries: A Review of Literature and Practice more...

  • International Alert and Swiss Peace Foundation: Implementing the United Nations Security Council Resolution on Women, Peace and Security: Integrating Gender into Early warning Systems (May 2001) more...

  • International Peace Academy : more...

  • NPSIA/CIFP: Risk Assessment Indicator Definitions more...

  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Development Assistance Committee (DAC): Helping Prevent Violent Conflict: The DAC Guidelines, more...

  • Preliminary Framework on Gender and Conflict Early Warning, more... Eugenia Piza-Lopes and Susanne Schmeidl.
  • Thesaurus and Glossary of Early Warning and Conflict Prevention Terms, Alex Schmidt. more...

  • World Bank: “Mainstreaming Gender in Conflict Analysis: Issues and Recommendations”: more....

Powerpoint presentations

UN Resources

Secretary General

  • The Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on Conflict Prevention, 7 June 2001 provides detailed information of what the Departments, Specialized Agencies and Funds of the UN System are doing towards conflict prevention.

Security Council

General Assembly

  • 18 July 2003, General Assembly Resolution 57/337 on Conflict Prevention took over three years to negotiate.

Independent Experts' Assessment & Recommendations

The Independent Experts' Assessment on Women, War, Peace and Conflict Prevention and the accompanying recommendations can be accessed in this archive: Prevention Archive