Gender-oriented Peace Policy: Peace Work and Women's Rights through the lens of KOFF

The issue of women and girls being the targets of rape during war was long considered a taboo subject. Despite publicized incidents in countries such as Bosnia, dealing with gender-specific discrimination was for a long time left to chance when it came to peacebuilding. A breakthrough was not reached until October 2000 when, following a year-long civil society campaign, the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security was adopted. Many countries responded to this new commitment by drawing up their own National Action Plan (NAP) – including Switzerland, which approved its first NAP along with corresponding courses of action and indicators in 2007.

This paper focuses on 1) how peacebuilding and gender promotion agendas have evolved in Switzerland, 2) how the two activities interact, and 3) the achievements of UN Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. While exploring these issues, the paper's authors zero in on the activities of swisspeace’s Centre for Peacebuilding (KOFF) and conclude that gender considerations need to feature prominently in peacebuilding efforts.