Why the need to focus on Women, Peace, and Security Agenda in Africa?

Political and territorial disputes and the lack of consensus on the utilization of common natural resources pose challenges to stability across the African continent.  Long-standing crises that exist in different parts of the continent raise major humanitarian and human rights concerns and affect the region. Women, internally displaced persons, refugees, minority groups, children, and migrants are particularly vulnerable. African countries also have suffered and still suffer from governance challenges.

Women’s rights are Human Rights. Violations of human rights, exclusion, discrimination, and structural inequality are among the structural root causes of instability and violence. Moreover, conflict exacerbates pre-existing patterns of discrimination based on sex and puts women and girls at risk of sexual, physical, and psychological violence. Violence hurts women and girls and hampers their ability to thrive in multiple ways. Wars and armed conflicts destroy families and societies and leave women and girls particularly vulnerable.^[1]

Sexual violence is widespread and often used as a weapon of war. Women continue to suffer from violence and lack of adequate services that address their specific needs in post-conflict and reconstruction. The general breakdown of the rule of law, the availability of small arms, the breakdown of social and family structures leave women and girls at a greater risk of facing sexual violence in post-conflict societies.^[2] Women’s participation in peace and nation-building on the continent remains low.

Implementing the women, peace, and security agenda is imperative to achieving the goals set in ‘Agenda 2063’ and the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the African Union flagship initiative on ‘Silencing the Guns by 2020’ and building the ‘Africa We Want.

UNOAU Gender Unit

Updated on 25th June 2022

^[1] Read our Beijing+20 In Focus package on violence against women and UN Women compilation

^[2] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/WRGS/Pages/PeaceAndSecurity.aspx