Building Holistic Security: Addressing Security Risks of Women Peacebuilders Through Partnerships’

Abstract

Women peacebuilders inevitably face risks and insecurity in their daily work. International partners have an important role to play in supporting their safety and protection. Understanding women peacebuilders’ roles and the types of risks they face is the first step in ensuring an adequate response. The diversity of roles that women peacebuilders play, as well as the multiple factors that impact the types of risks they might face, need to be taken into account by international partners from the very beginning of a partnership. This report identifies how international partners can better partner with women peacebuilders to address the risks and insecurity they face in the different facets of their work. The report analyzes the risks that many women peacebuilders experience and provides guidelines for international partners to help prevent and mitigate these risks. Through case studies, the report identifies challenges and opportunities drawn directly from the lived realities of women peacebuilders and their partners, as well as from experts working in the Women, Peace and Security field. The report addresses how international partners who wish to work with women peacebuilders and support them in addressing the risks and insecurity they face need to recognize the scope and nature of peacebuilding work, which is often cross-cutting, overlapping with humanitarian response and development work. Understanding the nuances and breadth of women peacebuilders’ work is crucial to identifying the risks they face and providing them with effective legal, political and financial protection — and is thereby essential to creating partnerships that mitigate and address these risks Analyzing the security risks women peacebuilders experience and current strategies for preventing and mitigating these risks generated the following key findings: