Women on the Frontlines of Water Insecurity

By Mayesha Alam

Find the PDF version of this Information2Action Rapid Response here.

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Water is essential to life on earth, but we are facing a global crisis. According to a new report released by UNESCO on March 22 to mark International Water Day, the world will face a 40 percent shortage in our water supply by 2030. This is an alarming problem that disproportionately affects women and girls.

In many places around the world where dependable irrigation is a distant dream and clean water a precious commodity, women and girls bear the primary burden of finding water. What they are able to carry on their heads and shoulders is then rationed carefully for drinking, cooking, cleaning and other livelihood needs. In fact, around the world, women and children spend 140 million hours per day collecting water for their families and communities, according to Water.org, and this results in their lost productive potential. For example, in many villages of India and Ethiopia, girls are kept out of school or fall behind on their studies because they are required to fetch water. This, in turn, contributes to child marriage and early pregnancy. For women in warzones, such as South Sudan, the often long and lonely journey of collecting water comes with very real physical dangers, including rape and kidnapping. For those who are forcibly displaced, either in their own countries or as refugees in foreign lands, lack of access to water or sanitation is one of the most significant challenges faced on a daily basis. Climate change is also exacerbating water shortage and women, who comprise the majority of the world’s agricultural labor force, must adapt to increased famines, droughts and flooding. Lack of adequate access to safe water and sanitation is also a key factor in maternal and child mortality, and is dramatically more pronounced in rural settings. In January 2015, the World Economic Forum identified water shortage as being the single greatest “Global Risk” based on its widespread societal effects.

But women and girls are not merely victims of this global crisis and nor should they be perceived as such. Increasing access to clean water would increase girls’ enrollments in school and their levels of literacy and education. In Ghana, researchers found that reducing the time a girl needs to spend gathering water by even a mere 15 minutes would increase her school attendance rate by 8 to 12 percent. Similarly, women would be able to spend that time working, providing for their families and contributing to economic growth. Inexpensive and bio-friendly tools would allow women and girls to become shepherds of environmental sustainability. Simple investments in increasing access to clean water and sanitation have the potential to reap multiple economic, social, health, and even political dividends. The World Health Organization estimates that every $1 spent on water and sanitation would reap a $4 monetary benefit. Moreover, ensuring universal access to water and basic sanitation would reduce unsafe water-borne sickness and associated healthcare costs, as well as increase output to grow the global economy by $32 billion.

This year marks the fifteenth anniversary since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals, which were created to eradicate extreme poverty, as well as the twentieth anniversary of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. As we measure progress made, it is important to reflect on not only how far we’ve come, but also how far we have yet to go. For example, more people around the world own a cell phone than a toilet. Raising awareness coupled with greater access to credit, especially for women who have an extremely difficult time receiving loans or are unable to own property in many countries, represent cost-effective measures to improving irrigation and hygiene.

The simple truth is that without water, humanity cannot survive, just as without women, who constitute more than half the global population, humanity cannot thrive. Ensuring women’s empowerment is a critical ingredient to mitigate the risks of water insecurity. To create positive change, we will need political leadership, scientific innovation, environmental conservation and the full and equal participation of women.

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Mayesha Alam is the Associate Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the author of Women and Transitional Justice: Progress and Persistent Challenges (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Women of ISIS: Seeking a Gendered Understanding of Extremist Recruitment in the West

By Ashley Binetti

Originally posted on The Carter Center’s Forum on Women blog. 

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Of the 455 publicly identified men and women who have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria to fight with a terrorist organization, 36 are women from the West. The average age of these women is 18 years old. What lures young Western women to join extremist movements? It is a question that has not yet been given the attention it deserves.

To successfully counter violent extremism, efforts must seek to understand what attracts women to join such movements, not solely writing it off as mental illness or an attraction to trivialities. CNN recently came under fire for stating that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) uses “Nutella and kittens” to attract Western women to its call for violent jihad. Experts assert the pull is much more complex: “Believe it or not, women can be susceptible to ideologies too,” stated one panelist at the Global Center on Cooperative Security’s Roles of Women and Youth in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism.

On January 23, 2015, Shannon Maureen Conley became the first woman in America to be sentenced for conspiracy to support ISIS. Conley was found in violation of Title 18 of the United States Code Section 2339B, “Providing and Attempting to Provide Material Support or Resources to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.”

The Affidavit supporting Conley’s criminal complaint and arrest warrant details Conley’s conversations with FBI Special Agents. In those eight interviews, Conley repeatedly identified that she wanted to go overseas and wage jihad—either as a combatant or a medical assistant in the field. (Byrne Aff. ¶6). She continued to affirm her plan to join extremist efforts abroad, despite warnings from the special agents regarding the illegality of her intended actions that could result in her arrest: “When asked if she still wanted to carry out the plans, knowing they are illegal, Conley said that she does.” (Byrne Aff. ¶7). Conley told the special agents “she would rather be in prison than do nothing.” (Byrne Aff. ¶ 11). Conley also shared that she met a 32 year-old male online who was fighting for ISIS in Syria whom she planned to marry. (Byrne Aff. ¶¶ 17-18). Conley was arrested at the airport on April 4, 2014.

While Judge Raymond P. Moore acknowledged during the trial that “[Conley] is in need of psychiatric help,” and “I’m not saying that her decisions were all a product of mental illness…But she’s a bit of a mess,” he sentenced Conley to a four-year prison sentence to deter others from joining ISIS. We must ask how much of a deterrent effect this sentence will have on other young women. After all, Conley received numerous warnings from FBI agents that her plans were illegal, but she was not dissuaded. The way in which ISIS treats non-Muslim female slaves, “kidnapping, selling and raping women and children,” or beheads journalists and other hostages, has also not deterred the young girls that continue to leave their homes to join the extremist group they fervently support. What benefit do young women see in waging violent jihad, in defending a radical interpretation of Islam “that seeks to install a Taliban-style utopia that will ensure you can never have a job or get an education”?

Rather than using one young woman’s prison sentence in hopes of deterring others from joining ISIS, more research is needed on why these women are drawn to extremist ideology in the first place. We must be wary of attributing this attraction to the frivolities of “Nutella and kittens” because “it denies women any political agency…[and] it infantilizes them in a way that you would assume they would be drawn to this for the most superficial reasons,” according to Nimmi Gowrinathan, a visiting professor at the Colin Powell Center for Civic and Global Leadership at City College, New York.

There is an ideological element that often goes ignored—especially in the case of young women, where they are cast aside as “mentally unstable,” or characterized as leaving “to marry the jihadist militant of their dreams.” However, the search for a sense of belonging is an underlying factor that must be examined: “[ISIS is] targeting the young men and women who want to be part of something greater than themselves to accept this movement for the validity that they believe the [Qur’an] is teaching,” said Richard Brennan, a Middle East expert at the RAND Institute.

Is the pull a matter of the desire to belong, mixed with powerful propaganda? For young women who feel ostracized by their own communities, is it the promise of love that draws them in? In Conley’s case, one news report labeled her as “a bright teenager lost in middle-class suburbia who went searching for love and purpose.” Conley had converted to Islam during her junior year of high school, and, according to Judge Moore, “almost agreed to marry three different people in a matter of months” between 2011 and 2014. She read the Qur’an in its entirety for the first time only after she was incarcerated.

If we don’t invest in serious research efforts to understand why Western women are joining ISIS, we risk finding more young women like Conley behind bars, labeled as “terrorists,” in the hope of deterring others from following suit.

Gender Equality in Militaries: How Far We’ve Come and How Far We Have to Go

Just ahead of International Women’s Day, George Washington University’s Global Gender Program convened a panel discussion on gender equality in military operations. “What Works? Promoting Gender Equality and the Implementation of UNSCR 1325 in Military Operations” took place 25 February 2015, bringing together a distinguished group of experts that included Dr. Chantal de Jonge Oudraat (President, Women in International Security), Commandant Jayne Lawlor (Gender, Equality, and Diversity Officer, Irish Defense Forces), Charlotte Isaaksson (Gender Advisor, Supreme HQ Allied Powers Europe), Brenda Oppermann (Human Rights Subject Matter Expert), and Dr. Robert Egnell (Visiting Professor and Director of Teaching, Security Studies Program, Georgetown University) for a discussion moderated by George Washington University Professor Dr. Aisling Swaine.

This year will mark the 15^th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace, and Security, which affirms the critical roles of women in conflict and in rebuilding societies post-conflict. While the passage of UNSCR 1325 remains a watershed moment in incorporating women’s rights into national security, as Swaine noted, “we still have a long way to go in actually making progress in implementation…and one of the biggest areas where we see gaps are within militaries themselves.”

The Importance of Gender in Military Operations

In her opening remarks, Dr. de Jonge Oudraat identified a key question: Why should we talk about gender in military operations? She recalled that in 2000, when UNSCR 1325 was adapted, many of the peace agreements brokered by the UN were falling apart after just three or four years. There was a great deal of pressure from women’s groups to be at the peace table, which, at that point, “forgot about half the population.” Further, Dr. de Jonge Oudraat explained that this marked the era when the very nature of conflicts was changing, from wars between states to wars within them, drawing attention to the notion of human security.

Photo Credit: Turkish Naval Forces

Dr. Egnell echoed these statements, commenting that Women, Peace, and Security issues are both intrinsically important and necessary to increase military effectiveness. Comdt. Lawlor referred to her experience with the Irish Defense Forces as she explained that some elements of gender awareness were already present in the planning and execution of operations. For instance, it was common knowledge to have female soldiers instead of male soldiers search women, when necessary. Oppermann agreed and offered her perspective from working on these issues with the U.S. military. She noted that military officials realized the necessity of considering local women in the planning of raids. The challenge across the board, however, was identifying such practices as gender awareness and moving beyond these basic applications. A common theme in the discussion was the difficulty of departing from tradition and adopting new procedures and perspectives.

Practical Strategies for Incorporating a Gender Perspective into Military Operations

Though difficult, progress has been made on efforts to incorporate a gender perspective into military operations across the globe. In the Irish military, Comdt. Lawlor created an action plan, or, as she put it, “an idiot’s guide for implementing a gender perspective for soldiers.” She explained that this was an effort to infuse gender awareness training at multiple levels, from career courses to planning operations. Her efforts also included appointments of gender focal points at each level “so that at every stage, no matter what’s going on, someone there is thinking about gender,” and distributing information about local NGOs and civil society organizations poised to serve as further resources.

Isaaksson spoke of similar strategies in her experience at NATO. She emphasized the importance of “treating gender as a task” – outlining strategic and operational objectives as well as defining measures of effectiveness. She underscored that “we want to do gender as we do everything else – fully integrated, not something on the side or parallel.” Isaaksson noted, “I’d argue that [NATO has] been successful on the gender mainstreaming side” and that its approach was “very much about institutionalization.”

Oppermann described a more challenging context from her experience with U.S. Military operations in Afghanistan. She described gender as “not part of the military lexicon.” Oppermann emphasized that incorporating gender perspectives in the U.S. Military is “all about relationship-building.” She detailed steps forward on the ground in Afghanistan, including developing a gender annex as part of a regional order, which she called “a big win,” and female engagement team (FET) trainings. However, the panelists agreed that the U.S. has a long way to go on mainstreaming gender into operations as an institution.

Points of Entry and Points of Resistance

Each speaker emphasized the vital nature of entry points within the institution to produce real and sustainable change. Regarding whether bringing gender perspectives to military is a top-down or bottom-up process, Dr. Egnell argued, “if we want change, we have to affect it from both sides.” Indeed, Comdt. Lawlor highlighted that her institutional action plan gained traction when the IDF Chief of Staff signed onto it. This reiterated Egnell’s point that the way to mainstream gender is through developing incentives to support these issues. Therefore, the system through which one makes gains in salary and promotions has to reflect this perspective.

The discussion pointed to a main challenge in implementing a gender perspective in militaries: resistance to change. The panelists agreed that tradition proved to be a significant block to making progress on gender perspectives. Dr. de Jonge Oudraat affirmed that introducing a gender perspective is a highly political choice as “it is about the distribution of power in society, and people don’t give that up very easily.”

Dr. Swaine closed the discussion by thanking the panelists for sharing their experiences in implementing UNSCR 1325 in militaries, for including remarks both practical and strategic, and discussing points of entry and points of resistance. She emphasized the importance of taking what we know about weaving gender perspectives into military institutions and operations, and ensuring that it is translated into the armed contexts we facing today – contexts in which terrorism and non-state violence are growing threats.

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Lara Sulzman is a graduate student in the Master of Science in Foreign Service program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She focuses her studies on how best to address issues of gender, particularly gender-based violence, in humanitarian crises. She has worked in India, Thailand, and Jerusalem.

Economic Empowerment, Peace and Security—Women Using Information Communication Technology in Somalia

Johorad [name has been changed] lives in the deep desert just under a full day’s walk from the “tarmac road”, the black asphalt highway cutting across Puntland – a state in Somalia’s northwest – the only formal transit point connecting Johorads’ community with the rest of the country and the coast. Johorad is 23 years old, married, with three children, and is the family member directly responsible for managing the goats and camels sourcing the family’s income. Johorad also walks three kilometers to climb the top of a hill four times a week so that she can get reception on her 3G mobile phone from one of the telecom towers dotting the arid landscape. Through her phone, she can connect with other women in her livestock and milk collection cooperative via SMS, and she can navigate the Internet and manage her Facebook account. Phone and the internet are so important to Johorad that at times, when income constraints force her to choose between buying batteries for a generator to light the house at night and paying her phone bill, the phone bill wins. And because she often uses this technology to manage her livestock business, Johorad’s family supports this prioritization. Yet in addition to growing her family’s business, Johorad’s phone, and through it, her ability to connect to other communities through the internet, has enabled her to develop her talent as a poet, and even gain national recognition for her writing.

Johorad went to school until class four, and she can still read and write in Somali. She has always thought in music and song, and she would jot lines of poetry on paper scraps about the house. But her world expanded drastically in the spring of 2014 when she found the Facebook page of the Puntland Women Writers Association (PWWA), based in the state capital of Garowe. Taking a leap, Johorad messaged one of the PWWA women and sent across a short poem. The association was shocked and thrilled that someone from such a far off, rural community had found out about their presence and made contact. After communicating back and forth, the PWWA was eventually able to fund Johorad coming to Garowe to present her poem as an honorary guest at the Association’s annual literary conference. This visit marked the first time Johorad had traveled to an urban setting beyond the nearest village on the asphalt highway to which she brought livestock and milk every few weeks. Today, Johorad exchanges messages with PWWA members and other women several times a week, and her writing will be included in a book of poetry and oral history collected by the PWWA and set to be published in early 2016.

Johorad’s story is just one example of how in certain contexts in Somalia, the growing availability and use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) is helping augment women’s activity in the economic and public sphere. Though unfolding in incremental steps, women’s increasing empowerment in this regard, and the inter-clan networks growing out of their activities are contributing to Somalia’s movement towards more peaceful coexistence between communities.

Women in rural areas largely manage the livestock-related businesses, and, through this, are major drivers of communication between communities in rural spaces. To overcome separation across huge geographic distances, women livestock holders have been forming milk collection collectives, where participants arrange for milk and livestock transport through semi-urban counterparts at various stops along the asphalt “tarmac road.” The increasing ubiquity of mobile phones is now helping women diversify these businesses. They are creating a socially acceptable avenue for communication with the more “downstream” parts of the livestock supply chain, such as milk processing, livestock transport, market access and distribution – businesses traditionally dominated by men.

In more urban contexts, Somali women most commonly engage in economic activity through retail entrepreneurship. Women are often seen in the public sphere running clothing and perfume emporiums, market stalls and connector businesses. Particularly in Somalia’s context of entrenched clan conflict and fighting between Somali-African Union forces and al-Shabaab, Somalis have developed a complicated security vetting process to screen new neighbors, employees, business partners and educational institution applicants. Female entrepreneurs often have to conduct particularly strenuous social vetting processes for those they associate with, given the added restrictions on women related to modesty and social reputation. Mobile phones help streamline these complicated processes. Urban women entrepreneurs have actually converted security vetting processes into a service they sell as part of the “connector services” product suite. Already being mavericks simply by nature of their non-traditional client-facing role allows Somali women entrepreneurs to push boundaries in other ways. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, proportional to the amount of women in the workforce, it is more common for Somali women to enter into a business partnership outside their own particular community or sub-clan than for men to do the same.

Somali women in both rural and urban contexts are increasingly using communication as an entry point into the economic space. Furthermore, they are using mobile phones as a tool for doing so, and their economic activity bridges social gaps between disparate communities. Linkages between communities build rapport between community members that disincentives escalation of violent conflict. The improved economic opportunities available to rural communities out of women’s increased involvement in different parts of the livestock supply chain helps satisfy some of the economic grievances associated with violent conflict. Research suggests that in areas where women’s communication-based economic activity is more robust, inter-community conflict and revenge-based violence has been on the decline.

Johorad’s experience using mobile phone technology to grow her family’s business and her own artistic pursuits gives us one tiny glimpse into how the use of information communication technology is changing women’s role in Somali society. This change in roles is both improving women’s overall position and strengthening community linkages necessary for maintaining sustainable peace. Though community backlash towards women’s increasing economic activity is prevalent, ICT is making it socially and logistically easier for women to create bonds between their communities and between each other. As Somalia moves closer toward its 2016 elections, women politicians might find new opportunities for engagement and have a particularly important role to play. Women’s increasing use of ICT to link with other women and society at large may continue to develop and contribute to these and other socio-political tides.

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Rachel Firestone is a second year Master’s Candidate at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, focusing on post-conflict reconstruction and the role of access to justice mechanisms in fragile and conflict states. Previously, she spent five years in India working on leadership and self-advocacy programs for women from communities recovering from sectarian violence and internal displacement. This summer, Rachel led a global education program in India through Lakeside School in Seattle and worked in Somalia on an ICT-based entrepreneurship development project with the World Bank.

Symposium Recap – “Women: Powerful Agents for Peace and Security”

Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security Associate Director Mayesha Alam travelled to Amsterdam, Netherlands to participate in the “Women: Powerful Agents for Peace and Security” symposium, convened by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. Discussions at the symposium focused on enhancing the participation and leadership of women in conflict and post-conflict peacebuilding. Read her recap of the symposium below.

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1. We need to deconstruct what we mean by “peace” and “security” and reconstruct this terms, as well as how we formulate policy around them, in a way that incorporates the lived experiences of women and their grassroots level efforts. So when we say “peace” or “security”, what do we mean by this? Peace for whom and by whom? Security for whom and by whom?

As one woman leader from South Sudan, Rita Abraham, said, “The hierarchy of peace negotiations does not favour those who wage peace but those who wage war. Women are systematically marginalized from negotiations, even when mobilized for peace. It’s as if you need a gun to get to the peace table.”

What happens all too often, when the only people around a negotiation table are the warring parties, is that the discussion become about power-sharing and personal gain. This needs to be changed such that negotiations provide a roadmap for responsibility-sharing and good governance.

How do we do this? Listen to women on the ground. If they’re living it, they’re the true experts. They know what it takes to survive.

2. Increase both the participation of women as well as their perspectives during peace negotiations. How do we do this? Make sure that every internationally mediated peace process includes one male mediator and one female mediator. And in the terms of reference for mediators, include guidelines and requirements related to gender sensitivity. These are two measures that can move us towards developing an international standard of practice. 

3. Civil society and government need to work more constructively together.CSO and government do not need to be friends but they do need to be able to partner.Peace is a multi-stakeholder process, but, too often, the participation of anyone that is not a direct warring party is simply cosmetic. One way to make the dialogue a partnership is by focusing on common goals and mutual interest. 

4. If you want women to be in decision-making positions, they need to be able to perform at their best and navigate the systems through which peace, governance and security are operated. This requires capacity-sharing (new terminology to replace capacity-building which connotes that women on the ground are lacking in capacity). 

Two examples:

a) Electoral quotas — if you are going to create quotas for women to participate in formal politics, you need to make sure they are able to work the system and survive – to actually lead. Otherwise, quotas can be counterproductive.

b) Political parties — political parties in too many places have a bad reputation for their dysfunctional nature, for corruption and poor leadership, and for partisanship that ultimately undermines good governance. And yet, without political parties, there cannot be a true democratic system. Women often choose not to run for office because of the way political parties work. There is a need to overhaul and clean up parties. Democracy without women is impossible. And democracy without political parties is also not possible. 

More than rights trainings or gender sensitization trainings, what women on the ground need are real entry points to engage directly in decision-making, whether or not they’re engaged informal politics.

5. If you want to encourage governments to incorporate women into the process, don’t just blame and shame, but also use positive examples. How do we do this? Elevate those who are leading by example. Use positive examples to change mindsets; in every single country there are women who are doing important and transformative things. Highlight them and hold their governments accountable based on these positive examples rather than only negative examples.

6. Violence takes many forms and one of the troubling trends now is gender-based violence and abuse being perpetrated through ICT. Maybe it seems like a lesser form of violence, but it can incite serious physical and mental harm, especially for women in politics or women human rights defenders. It feeds into institutions, it feeds in domestic violence within the home, and it can make very real barriers for women to participate that a) did not exist before or b) buttress old barriers.

7. The WPS agenda needs to be broadened to include and engage with private security (not just police, armies and insurgent groups), especially as the role of private security companies grows in places like Afghanistan (UNSCR 1325 and subsequent resolutions do not recognize this actor). The same is true for the intelligence agencies. There is very little understanding and research on this topic. These agencies, especially in the Countering Violent Extremism space, have operated until now in a gender-blind way that actually does more harm than good and also undermines their objectives.

8. Apply the principle of “Do No Harm”to the implementation of UNSCR 1325/the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. This is especially for donor agencies and governments who are increasingly trying to engage on these issues but don’t necessarily know how to. Even where good intentions exist, bad practice triumphs. A few common mistakes include:

1. a) Not listening to women on the ground
2. b) Speaking on behalf of women on the ground, rather than letting them speak for themselves
3. c) Providing inadequate support to women’s groups due to the way in which international aid is administered or false perceptions (such as women’s groups are unable to manage financial resources, ill-equipped to handle large sums of money)

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Mayesha Alam is the Associate Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. Ms. Alam is an Adjunct Faculty in the School of Foreign Service where she co-teaches a graduate seminar on women, peace and security. She is the author of Women and Transitional Justice: Progress and Persistent Challenges (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Originally from Bangladesh, she received her M.A. in conflict resolution at Georgetown University and her B.A. in international relations and biology from Mount Holyoke College.

Commemorating the Third Anniversary of the U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security

On December 19, 2011, President Obama launched the United States National Action Plan (NAP) on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) through Executive Order 13595. Last week, USAID hosted a Third Anniversary Event to commemorate this fundamental change in how the U.S. government approaches diplomacy, development and defense to support women in conflict zones. The event featured speakers from USAID; the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor; the National Security Council and the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. The panel focused its remarks on successes and barriers to NAP implementation, including research gaps, in anticipation of the three-year review of the U.S. NAP.

The U.S. NAP represents the government’s express commitment to realizing UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), which seeks to increase women’s participation in peacebuilding and protect women from conflict-related sexual violence. Bringing more women to negotiation tables, integrating solutions and justice for women into peace agreements, and increasing women in security and justice systems “is not just a nice thing to do, it is a strategic thing to do,” said Karen Hanrahan, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) at the U.S. Department of State.

Echoing this sentiment, those in the WPS field must recognize that “we cannot sell the agenda with rights-based arguments alone,” said Dr. Robert Egnell, Senior Faculty Advisor at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. “[And] we are still [unfortunately]…in a startup phase 15 years after the initiation of the agenda.” We need evidence-based research, which Egnell acknowledged tends to indicate a desire for quantitative figures—a report that can show “including women at the peace table is 70% more effective,” for example. However, there are so few cases of women’s inclusion in peace talks that it would be statistically insignificant research to form quantitative analyses at this juncture. Instead, Egnell suggested that we emphasize qualitative examples so we can begin to understand how women impact peace processes. Another facet of the WPS research agenda that Egnell raised is the need to shift from viewing women as victims to seeing them as change agents, so that 1325 can have the intended empowering effect.

To gauge the U.S. government’s success in implementing its NAP, Executive Order 13595 called for a comprehensive review after three years—which is due to take place in 2015. Contemplating the successes and challenges of the U.S. NAP, Carla Koppell, Chief Strategy Officer of USAID Office of the Administrator, shared her reflections on a recent trip to Uganda: There is a palpable difference in how individuals engage in conversations around gender today, versus three or four years ago. “Today, everyone at the mission thinks about gender issues as woven into the entire post-conflict reconstruction program.” Additionally, Dr. David Yang, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance at USAID, highlighted that USAID has made significant progress in the past three years. Signs of this progress include the integration of WPS objectives into the overall USAID business model, mandatory country-level and project-level gender analysis, gender training for staff, and adopting mission orders at the country level on gender integration. While these are welcome indicators of success, many challenges to fully implementing the U.S. NAP still exist.

There are several tactical choices that the U.S. will need to address when reviewing its NAP and overall implementation strategy: Should there be a focus on rights based arguments or strategic arguments? An emphasis on gender perspectives or integration, on gender mainstreaming or specific functions? Where should the government initiate the process of change? After addressing these concerns, the U.S. will need to think about how to alter “centuries of ingrained bureaucratic processes…there are questions about how to effectively integrate organizational change that we still don’t have answers to,” Egnell indicated.

It is a point of critical importance: How do we get the appropriate stakeholders—at home and abroad – to accept this agenda and meaningfully incorporate it into preexisting structures? This is a fundamental challenge of working in the WPS field, especially in crisis environments where governments experience problems of political will and capacity, and cannot always plan beyond the urgency of the conflict at hand. Furthermore, we need to ascertain how “we address societal discrimination and cultural values associated with the WPS effort,” stated Regina Waugh, Director of Human Rights and Gender at the National Security Council. She asserted, “the type of social change that needs to happen is not an overnight thing.”

Hanrahan remains positive, noting the U.S. is “trying to improve how we do business” and is “committed to leading by example,” but cautions, “we must also be somewhat humble as we review [our] global track record.” In light of the upcoming 15^th Anniversary of UNSCR 1325, the third anniversary of the U.S. NAP and its upcoming review, and the post-2015 development agenda, Hanrahan shared, “We are viewing 2015 as the year of women, peace and security,” and “we are pushing to place gender equality and women and girls at the heart of the post-2015 development agenda.”

In addition to the identified priorities, research gaps, successes and challenges, the U.S. and all countries committed to the WPS agenda will need to explore how to move beyond the numbers when assessing gains in women’s political participation. Yang stressed, “It is not just about increasing quotas, it is about devising, conceptualizing and achieving women’s true influence, power and leadership.” This is the essence of UNSCR 1325, and one of the fundamental goals of the WPS agenda.

As Koppell underscored in her remarks, “civil society is essential” to government accountability and mainstreaming this commitment across sectors. The involvement of civil society will be indispensable in designing a review of the U.S. NAP that addresses these identified gaps and ultimately strengthens the government’s commitment to effectively implementing 1325.

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Ashley Binetti is the 2014-2015 Hillary Rodham Clinton Law Fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. She received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 2014, specializing in human rights and transnational law.