Fifteen years after the adoption of the landmark UN Security Council Resolution 1325, women remain significantly underrepresented in peace and political transition processes. A central challenge is the lack of evidence-based knowledge on the precise role and impact of women’s inclusion in peace processes.

Inclusive peace processes are gradually replacing the traditional exclusive peace deals negotiated solely between two or more armed groups. From Colombia to Libya and Myanmar, current peace processes seek to broaden participation at even the highest level of official peace negotiations. Although women often take part in these negotiations, there is still resistance to the greater inclusion of women. Our research work seeks to provide an evidence base to promote women’s participation and gender mainstreaming in all aspects of peacemaking and peacebuilding.

Research objective

Our research work on women in peace and political transition processes explores the roles and influence of women in a variety of peace, constitution-making, and political reform processes worldwide.

Methodology

The research analysed data from the “Broadening Participation in Political Negotiations and Implementation” research project conducted between 2011 and 2017 at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. This project explores how and under what conditions various actors in addition to the main negotiating parties have participated in and influenced peace processes and political transitions, by comparing more than 40 in-depth qualitative case studies of peace and constitution-making multi-stakeholder negotiations, and the implementation of negotiated agreements, ranging from 1989 to 2014.

Key Findings

• Making women count is more important than counting women: what makes a difference for reaching and implementing sustainable peace agreements is the level of influence that women actually have on the process – not merely their numerical presence.
• The chances of agreements being implemented are also much higher when women’s groups have stronger influence on the process.
• Timing is key to achieving successful and effective inclusion of women in peace and transition negotiations. Early women’s involvement – preferably in the pre-negotiation phase – has often paved the way for sustained women’s inclusion throughout subsequent negotiations and agreement implementation processes.
• Women’s inclusion takes place through different modalities, both at the negotiating table and beyond.

Outputs

The Report Making Women Count – Not Just Counting Women: Assessing Women’s Inclusion and Influence on Peace Negotiations, based on comparative evidence from 40 in-depth cases since 1989, is the largest qualitative comparative study of women’s participation in peace and transition processes to date. The report was originally prepared as an input to the Global Study in preparation for the High-level Review on the Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

The Briefing Note Making Women Count in Peace Processes summarises the key findings from the comparative study on women’s inclusion and influence on peace negotiations.

Our series of women case studies in this series are based on findings of the “Broadening Participation” research project. The series explores the role of women – defined as relatively organised groups, including delegations of women, women’s civil society organisations, coalitions, or networks – in a range of peace, constitution-making, and political reform processes.

List of country case studies

Afghanistan / Burundi / Democratic Republic of the Congo / Fiji / Guatemala / Kenya / Liberia / Mexico / Nepal / Northern Ireland / Somalia / Somaliland / South Africa / Sudan / Tunisia / Yemen