Bridging the Gap: Gender-inclusive multi-track diplomacy as environmental peacebuilding
art by Sonya Montenegro (USA) of The Far Woods
Dr. Marisa O. Ensor (Georgetown University); Nyachangkuoth R. Tai (Assistance Mission for Africa)
Ensuring gender balance in multi-track environmental diplomacy creates opportunities to leverage women’s differentiated knowledge, diverse perspectives, and experiences, including existing coping capacities and sources of resilience, thereby mitigating human and environmental security threats.
Context
Balanced gender representation in peace processes results in agreements that are more durable and less likely to relapse into conflict.[i] The increasing participation of women in community-level environmental peacebuilding efforts is also recognized as a positive development. It is thus critical to ensure that women from different backgrounds are able to participate in peacebuilding negotiations. They also need to contribute to the design and implementation of environmental governance initiatives on an equal footing with their male counterparts. Track I diplomacy conducted through official government channels remains, however, male-dominated. Women’s voices are thus sidelined; their human capital not applied to its full potential.
Effective multi-track[ii] environmental diplomacy[iii] requires that we expand our conception of who the relevant decision-makers are, and that we promote the meaningful participation of all significant stakeholders, including women. Ensuring better gender balance in environmental diplomacy creates opportunities to leverage women’s differentiated knowledge and diverse perspectives, including existing coping capacities and sources of resilience. This helps identify a broader set of solutions to environmental peacebuilding challenges by providing a more holistic understanding of local issues. Women’s participation in environmental diplomacy is, however, not without risks, as women are often the targets of violence. When women environmental peacebuilders can safely and meaningfully contribute to inclusive diplomacy processes, inter-state relations between countries sharing resources are improved, and human security threats are mitigated.
What’s been done
An illustrative example of this approach is a set of rehabilitation initiatives for female war survivors in South Sudan collectively known as the “Beam of Hope Project”.[iv] The women in this programme are being trained in peaceful conflict resolution strategies. They are receiving counselling, training, and assistance with various livelihood schemes. These involve cooperative management of animals, land, and riparian resources. Through these activities, women are engaging in locally led peacebuilding, participating in conservation, and contributing to their community’s food security.
Several members of this programme, in addition to both authors of this contribution, participated in a Joint Peace Committee and Traditional Leaders Conference organized by Assistance Mission for Africa (a South Sudanese peacebuilding NGO) and partners in early September 2018.[v] This conference was marked by the active participation of women, many of them members of various local Women’s Peace Committees. A formal Peace Agreement was signed on September 12th, 2018, putting an official end to the South Sudanese Civil War. Female civil society leaders acted as official observers in this process. Women comprised 25 per cent of the delegates, while one woman served as a mediator.[vi] Women demanded a broader political agenda to include protection, education, health, and attention to environmental issues, particularly as they impact livelihoods.
It is worth noting that although most political violence has abated since the signing of the Peace Agreement, high levels of violence against women have persisted.[vii] Women activists are often specifically targeted. Confronting deeply engrained cultural and social norms dictating a subordinate, mostly silent role for females may place women environmental peacebuilders in a difficult, and even dangerous position. As other studies of conflict-affected females have also noted, “[r]esilience in the context of war often carries a high price”.[viii]
Looking ahead
The international environmental peacebuilding community must address the unequal power dynamics inherent in the aid sector. These dynamics play an important role in shaping relationships between international and local organizations, as well as among female and male members of organizations and communities. Examples of successful gender-inclusive multi-track diplomacy illustrate the opportunities and challenges of supporting women’s leadership in deeply patriarchal countries which, like South Sudan, are undergoing major environmental and socio-political changes.
Often helping champion dialogue over dispute, women’s leadership in environmental diplomacy has become even more critical given current challenges. We must incorporate gender-inclusive multi-track environmental diplomacy efforts, acknowledging the gendered web of interconnected activities, institutions, individuals, and communities that collaborate towards the common goal of a more peaceful and environmentally resilient world.[ix]
We must elevate the participation of women environmental diplomats and ensure that gender issues are an intrinsic component of the peacebuilding agenda. Women environmental peacebuilders require tailored support and protection to ensure their safety, foster their ability to participate in environmental diplomacy discussions, and exercise their rights.[x]
To facilitate these objectives, we must develop gender-disaggregated data and analysis, and targeted policies and programmes backed by sufficient funds in order to better address the impacts of conflict, environmental crises, and displacement on the lives of the affected women and girls, men and boys. Resulting findings on gender-differentiated contributions can help policymakers, development practitioners, and peacebuilders mitigate the risks of environmental insecurity and promote resilient, inclusive, and peaceful societies. In turn, empowering local women will enable conflict-affected and environmentally fragile countries like South Sudan to strengthen its environmental, economic, and political structures and institutions.[xi]
Footnotes
[i] Council on Foreign Relations (2020) Women’s Participation in Peace Processes. (https://www.cfr.org/womens-participation-in-peace-processes/)
[ii] Coined by U.S. Diplomat John McDonald, Multi-Track Diplomacy refers to the implication of other parties outside government system to implement the work of diplomacy itself. See Institute of Multi-Track Diplomacy Official Website: (2018) What is Multi-Track Diplomacy? (http://imtd.org/about/what-is-multi-track-diplomacy/)
[iii] Borrowing from Susanne Schmeier’s definition of “water diplomacy”, here we define environmental diplomacy as the use of diplomatic instruments to conflicts over shared environmental resources aiming to solve or mitigate those for the sake of cooperation, regional stability, and peace. See Schmeier, S. (2018) ‘What is Water Diplomacy and Why Should You Care?’ Global Water Forum. (https://globalwaterforum.org/2018/08/31/what-is-water-diplomacy-and-why-should-you-care/)
[iv] The “Beam of Hope” project is one of the various initiatives implemented by Assistance Mission for Africa (AMA) – a South Sudanese humanitarian NGO – in partnership with PAX – a Dutch peacebuilding INGO operating in South Sudan – among other donors, and with assistance from UNMISS – UN Mission in South Sudan and several other UN entities.
[v] AMA’s partners on this Peace Conference included UNMISS (UN Mission in South Sudan), PAX (a Dutch peacebuilding INGO operating in South Sudan), USAID/VISTAS (United States Agency for International Development/ South Sudan Viable Support to Transition and Stability), AID and Development Botswana, and the South Sudan Peace and Reconciliation Commission.
[vi] Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom (n.d.) Women Peace and Security Program: South Sudan. (https://1325naps.peacewomen.org/index.php/country/south-sudan/)
[vii] Cone, D. (2019) Still in Danger: Women and Girls Face Sexual Violence in South Sudan Despite Peace Deal. Field Report. Refugees International: Washington, DC.
[viii] Swaine, A. and Feeny, T. (2004) ‘A Neglected Perspective: Adolescent Girls’ Experiences of the Kosovo Conflict of 1999’, in Boyden, J. and de Berry, J. Children and Youth on the Frontline. 83. Berghahn Books: NY.
[ix] Institute for Multi-track Diplomacy (2019) Peacebuilding as a Living System: Arlington, VA: https://www.imtd.org/
[x] Ensor, M. O. (2020) South Sudanese Women on the Move: Their Roles in Conflict and Peacebuilding. German Federal Agency for Civic Education: Bonn. (https://www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/migration/laenderprofile/317971/south-sudanese-women)
[xi] Mustafa Ali, N. (2011) Gender and Statebuilding in South Sudan: Special Report. United States Institute for Peace: Washington, DC.