Briefing on Women, Peace and Security in the Context of Accelerated Drawdowns of UN Peace Operations
Tomorrow morning (7 August), the Security Council will hold a briefing on “Sustaining women, peace and security commitments in the context of accelerated drawdown of peace operations”. Assistant Secretary-General for Africa in the Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations (DPPA-DPO) Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, UN Women Executive Director Sima Sami Bahous, and a civil society representative are the expected briefers.
Council members that have signed on to the Shared Commitments on Women, Peace and Security (WPS)—Ecuador, France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland, the UK, and the US—are expected to read out a joint statement on the topic of the briefing ahead of the meeting.
The UN system has recently grappled with several transition processes, including in contexts where host governments have compelled UN missions to withdraw in haste. In 2023, following requests from host country authorities, the Security Council terminated the mandates of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS). The UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) is currently undergoing a phased drawdown, while UN missions in Iraq and Somalia are also facing the prospect of a cessation of their operations. (For background, see the brief on WPS in our August 2024 Monthly Forecast and our research report titled UN Transitions in a Fractured Multilateral Environment.)
Tomorrow’s meeting will mark the first time that the Security Council focuses specifically on challenges of accelerated drawdowns for the WPS agenda. According to a concept note prepared by Sierra Leone (August’s Council president), accelerated drawdowns, reconfiguration, and exit of UN peace operations “may pose increased risks for women and girls”. The concept note says that, in contexts where transitions are not adequately planned, this may jeopardise “hard-won peace gains and important contributions” to gender equality and the WPS agenda. It highlights the risk of hurried transitions leaving women and girls without protection from sexual and gender-based violence and conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and of exposing women human rights defenders and peacebuilders to attacks. It also identifies the risk of a sharp decline in institutional knowledge about, and interventions focused on, the situation of women and girls in transition contexts if the resources allocated to UN peace operations are not transferred to the UN Country Team (UNCT) or national actors.
In her briefing, Bahous is likely to express concern at the reduction of UN presence in conflict-affected countries against a backdrop of rising conflict and insecurity, severe levels of violence against women and girls, and shrinking space for women’s political participation in these contexts. She may identify challenges such as the lack of timely gender-responsive conflict analysis in the planning of UN peace operations, or the fact that women and women’s rights organisations are often excluded or under-represented in negotiations on transitions with host governments and seldom recognised as key stakeholders and partners in these processes. Bahous may call on the Security Council to follow up on these issues and suggest avenues for continued Council attention to gender equality and women’s meaningful participation in transition contexts, as well as to securing adequate financial resources for WPS after missions’ departures.
Pobee may frame transitions as tools to consolidate peace and WPS gains while also presenting specific challenges. In this regard, she is likely to draw attention to issues that have characterised recent transition processes, including political complexities and tensions with the host country and other stakeholders, declining support from the international community, and challenges for host countries to assume new roles and responsibilities. Pobee may identify specific risks and challenges for women and girls, including shrinking civic space, access to decision-making processes, security vacuums, and capacity gaps. She may spotlight the prevalence of CRSV in transition contexts in terms of both direct risks to women and girls and more broadly how it might undermine the Council’s efforts to address this issue. Pobee might also highlight examples of good practices and lessons learned regarding gender analysis, funding to support women’s participation, and transfer of responsibility in transition contexts. She may recommend, among other things, consistent Council engagement on WPS and transitions, and the inclusion of gender expertise at all levels of transitions.
Council members are expected to call for women’s safe, full, equal and meaningful participation before, during, and after transitions and, more broadly, in all peace and political processes. Several members may call for integrating gender-responsive analysis and technical gender expertise in all aspects of UN peace operations, including in transitions and after missions’ departure.
Some participants in tomorrow’s briefing are likely to reference contexts that have experienced or are undergoing transitions—such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mali, and Sudan—and may highlight specific challenges. Several Council members may more generally express concern at the withdrawal of peace operations in situations where the minimum conditions for the protection of civilians are not in place and at the lack of monitoring and protection, including from CRSV, after missions’ departure. Some are also likely to call for the use of gender-responsive benchmarks for missions’ withdrawals to guarantee that the needs of women and girls are integrated in all stages of transitions. Several members might call for consultations with women civil society organisations throughout the transition process.
Some participants might call on host countries to provide adequate time for transition processes in order to avoid accelerated departures and underscore the host state’s primary responsibility to protect its population. Some members might also underscore the importance of local ownerships of transitions.
Council members are expected to call for adequate funding to be allocated to aspects of transitions that are key to facilitating continuity of WPS-related programming and monitoring, such as resources to deploy UN technical gender expertise, to support the transfer of data and capacity to national institutions, and to invest in capacity-building for women’s organisations in transition contexts, including regarding CRSV monitoring and response. Participants may call for providing UNCTs with adequate resources to work on WPS, with some referring in this regard to the positive role played by the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) on WPS issues in some transitions contexts and calling for its use to leverage gender-transformative transition outcomes.
Tomorrow, members are likely to call for the full implementation of the Security Council’s WPS agenda and commitments flowing from it, such as national action plans on WPS, and resolution 2594 of 9 September 2021, which requested the Secretary-General to make sure to include throughout transition processes a comprehensive gender analysis; technical gender expertise; and the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women. Some members may also ask for additional data on the negative effects of transitions on women and girls and for lessons learned from recent withdrawals to be publicly shared.
Russia may reiterate positions it has expressed in previous Council discussions. For instance, it has argued in favour of limiting the Council’s consideration of “women’s issues”, contending that human rights and the role of women are already discussed in other UN forums. Russia has also called for reducing what it views as “peacekeepers’ secondary and non-core tasks, especially those on the human rights, social and gender fronts”. China and Russia have often opposed the inclusion of WPS-related language in Council products. Most recently, during the negotiations on resolution 2746, which was adopted today (6 August) and authorised MONUSCO to provide operational and logistical support to the Southern African Development Community Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC), language was deleted at Russia’s request that would have underlined the need to take into account a gender perspective in the implementation of all aspects of SAMIDRC’s strategic concept of operations, “including by ensuring that gender analysis and women’s participation are integrated into assessments, planning and operations”.
