Assessment of the Evidence of links Between Gender Equality, Peace-Building and State-Building, Literature review.

摘要

This report provides an overview of the knowledge base on gender-sensitive approaches to peace-building and state-building in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCAS). It uses systematic principles of enquiry to assess the evidence, but is not a systematic review. The assessment included a review of the most relevant sources, identifying the key trends and findings in relevant academic and grey literature. The main research questions included: What do gender-responsive approaches in peace-building and state-building look like? What is the impact of gender-responsive approaches on the peace-building and state-building goals of the international agenda, including inclusivity, participation, responsiveness and accountability? Do these approaches substantively enhance the advancement of gender equality goals in FCAS? For the most part, the literature on peace-building and state-building does not address these research questions directly or explicitly. As such, the review sought to elicit relevant analytical and empirical findings by taking a closer look at key thematic and sectoral components of peacebuilding and statebuilding, and examined how gender-responsive approaches featured in these. State of the evidence and knowledge base: The evidence on the linkages between peace-building and state-building processes and outcomes andthe adoption of gender-responsive approaches aimed at achieving gender equality outcomes in such processes is relatively weak and small in size, despite the breadth of the subject matter. There areimportant exceptions to this, with significant contributions to the literature from, for example, Castillejo (2011; 2013), El-Bushra (2012), Justino et al. (2012), Tripp (2012), the studies collated in the UN Women Source book on Women, Peace and Security (UN Women, 2012) and the recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Policy Paper, Gender and State-building in Fragile and Conflict-affected States (OECD-DAC, 2013).1 The focus on specific thematic components of peace-building and statebuilding efforts, such as support for peace agreements, justice and security reform, service delivery or economic recovery,reveals some useful insights into what gender-responsive approaches look like in these areas.However, there is limited direct reference in this literature to the politics of peace-building and state-building. Notably, the linkages across the thematic areas and sector-specific approaches remain hugely under developed. There is very limited analysis or evidence on how, for instance, including women in peace agreements or processes of constitutional reform affects the quality of or women’s access to basic services. Rather, as with policy processes, including among donors, the analysis and evidence of gender-responsive policy and practice in each thematic or sectoral area remains effectively siloed.