Recently, Executive Director of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, and Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, held a joint Security Council briefing on women peace and security issues, focusing on women’s political participation and protection from a peacekeeping perspective, respectively.  While Madame Bachelet focused on women’s agency, in particular the need for women to play a role in conflict resolution and encouraged their participation and engagement in peacemaking and peacebuilding processes, Mr. Ladsous focused on the protection of women and the need for more training and protection in order to establish a reliable security sector for women’s participation.

Madame Bachelet discussed that most of women’s political participation has been at informal stages and that has not translated at high level.  Women’s participation is a necessary component to resolving a crisis situation and it must be integrated into peace or mediation agreements; of course, of special importance is the role of mediators…