Despite decades of progress in recognizing women’s role in peace building, a stark reality persists: the field continues to suffer from massive knowledge gaps that undermine efforts to create lasting peace. As the world faces rising conflicts and unprecedented challenges, understanding and addressing these gaps has never been more urgent.
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The missing voices in peace processes
When we look at who sits at peace negotiating tables around the world, the numbers tell a troubling story. In 2023, women comprised only 9.6 per cent of negotiators and 13.7 per cent of mediators in peace processes. This systematic absence of women from decision-making roles isn’t just unfair-it represents a critical loss of expertise and perspective that weakens peace efforts from the start.
The problem runs deeper than simple representation. There is a persistent lack of gender expertise within peace processes themselves. Many negotiation teams lack specialists who understand how conflict affects women differently, or how gender dynamics shape post-conflict societies. This expertise gap means that even when women’s issues are discussed, they’re often addressed superficially or relegated to side conversations rather than being integrated into core peace agreements.
What makes this particularly frustrating is that we know women’s participation works. Research shows that peace agreements are 35 percent more likely to last at least 15 years when women are involved in the negotiations. Yet in 2023, only 26 per cent of peace agreements even mentioned women, girls or gender, and none included women’s groups as official signatories.
Adding to these challenges are conflicting positions within the United Nations system itself on women’s rights. While some UN agencies champion gender equality, others take more conservative approaches, creating confusion and inconsistency in how women’s rights are addressed during peace processes. This internal contradiction weakens the UN’s ability to advocate effectively for women’s meaningful participation.
When good intentions meet harsh realities
Here’s a pattern that repeats itself across conflict zones: gender equality provisions make it into early peace negotiations, generating hope and enthusiasm. Then comes the hard part-implementation. Time and again, these commitments fail to translate into real change on the ground.
The obstacles to implementation are both practical and political. Even when peace agreements include strong language about women’s rights and participation, they often lack the public support needed to make them stick. In many post-conflict societies, traditional gender norms reassert themselves quickly, and without broad-based backing, gender equality provisions become easy to ignore or postpone.
Resource constraints compound the problem significantly. Only 0.4 per cent of bilateral aid to conflict-affected contexts is directed to women-led organizations, far below the one percent minimum that UN officials recommend. Without adequate funding, even the best-designed gender equality programs struggle to function. The gap between what peace agreements promise and what countries can actually deliver becomes painfully obvious.
The challenge extends to rebuilding political, legal, and socio-economic structures. Post-conflict reconstruction requires transforming institutions that may have excluded or discriminated against women for generations. This isn’t just about writing new laws-it demands changing how government ministries operate, how courts function, how property rights work, and how economic opportunities are distributed. Such fundamental restructuring requires sustained commitment and substantial resources that are often lacking.
Studies reveal a tendency to focus on descriptive rather than substantive representation of women, meaning countries count the number of women in positions of power but pay less attention to whether those women can actually influence decisions or challenge gendered power relations. This explains why gender provisions in peace agreements frequently lack effective implementation despite appearing progressive on paper.
Why investing in women’s participation pays off
The good news is that when countries do invest in women’s participation and gender expertise, the benefits multiply across society. This isn’t about charity or fairness alone-it’s about building stronger, more resilient, and more prosperous post-conflict societies.
From a democratic perspective, involving women brings much-needed inclusiveness to peace building. When half the population participates in shaping peace, the resulting agreements better reflect the needs and priorities of the entire society. Women often bring different priorities to peace negotiations, including issues like food security, education, community reintegration, and justice for sexual violence survivors that might otherwise be overlooked.
The economic case for women’s participation is equally compelling. Analysis shows that improving gender equality can raise economic growth, enhance financial stability, and reduce income inequality. When women can work, own property, and access credit, they invest heavily in their families and communities, creating a multiplier effect that accelerates recovery. Countries struggling to rebuild after conflict simply can’t afford to sideline half their population’s economic potential.
Women’s participation also helps restore social capital-the networks of trust and cooperation that war destroys. Women often maintain connections across conflict lines and play crucial roles in community healing and reconciliation. Their economic empowerment is recognized as integral to post-conflict economic activities, improved recovery policies, and sustainable development.
Perhaps most importantly, peace building offers a historic opportunity to redress past gender injustices. Conflict disrupts old patterns and creates space for transformation. Women who took on new roles during wartime often resist returning to pre-war inequality. Peace agreements and reconstruction efforts can establish new precedents for gender equality, creating legal frameworks and institutions that protect women’s rights for generations to come.
The role of international priorities and resources
Whether this transformative potential gets realized depends heavily on international priorities and resource allocation. The global community’s choices about where to invest and what to emphasize shape how gender equality unfolds in post-conflict settings.
Unfortunately, current funding patterns don’t match the rhetoric about gender equality. While global military expenditure reached a record $2.7 trillion in 2024, funding for women’s peace building organizations remains desperately inadequate. International donors often prioritize security sector reform and infrastructure over programs that empower women, despite evidence that such programs contribute directly to long-term stability.
The problem isn’t just about total funding-it’s about how aid is distributed. Too often, international assistance flows through large international organizations rather than reaching local women’s groups who understand their communities’ needs. When women’s organizations do receive funding, it’s frequently short-term and project-based, making it difficult to build sustained capacity or influence.
International actors also influence which gender issues get prioritized. When donors emphasize certain concerns-say, women’s political participation-while downplaying others like economic rights or land ownership, they shape what gets addressed in peace building efforts. These priorities don’t always align with what women in conflict-affected countries identify as their most pressing needs.
Moving forward
Addressing knowledge gaps in gender and peace building requires action on multiple fronts. We need to systematically build gender expertise within peace processes, ensure adequate resources reach women’s organizations, and create accountability mechanisms that turn commitments into reality. The field has made progress since UN Security Council Resolution 1325 launched the Women, Peace and Security agenda 25 years ago, but the pace of change remains far too slow given the urgent needs.
What’s clear is that we can’t afford to keep making the same mistakes. Every peace process that excludes women, every implementation plan that lacks funding, every international priority that sidelines gender equality represents a missed opportunity to build more just, prosperous, and sustainable peace.
What do you think? How can the international community better support local women’s organizations working in conflict zones? What would accountability for gender commitments in peace agreements actually look like in practice?
References
- https://www.un.org/en/peace-and-security/page/women-peace-and-security
- https://www.cfr.org/womens-participation-in-peace-processes/index.html
- https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/facts-and-figures/facts-and-figures-women-peace-and-security
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9336158/
- https://www.inclusivesecurity.org/publication/why-women-inclusive-security-and-peaceful-societies/
- https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14825.doc.htm
- https://reliefweb.int/report/world/women%E2%80%99s-economic-empowerment-critical-build-lasting-peace
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