Increasing Women's Participation in United Nations Peace Operations

This project aims to support the long-term positive impact of increasing uniformed women’s meaningful participation in United Nations (UN) Peace Operations through improved policies and programming at the local national and global levels. Although governments and the UN have been making concrete commitments to increase women’s participation these commitments have not yet yielded sufficient results. In order to effect positive change research and advocacy are needed to ensure that recommendations policies and programming are grounded in evidence-based analysis. Project activities include: (1) conducting consultations and workshops with UN Peace Operations practitioners and experts to validate methodologies and approaches for researching women’s involvement in UN Peace Operations; (2) producing a survey instrument to collect data on the experiences and needs of uniformed women peacekeepers; (3) producing research publications based on analysis and providing policy recommendations to increase and best support women’s meaningful participation in UN Peace Operations; and (4) conducting policy forums and outreach to raise visibility and foster a shared understanding of research results analyses and recommendations to increase uniformed women’s meaningful participation in UN Peace Operations.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) enhanced decision-making by UN officials and members of state to address factors contributing to meaningful participation of uniformed women in UN Peace Operations; and (2) improved effectiveness of interventions by the UN national governments and civil society organizations to increase the meaningful participation of uniformed women in UN Peace Operations.