Grasping Local Participation: The Implementation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the Western Balkans and North Africa

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on those “points of fracture” (Kirby and Shepherd 2020, 12) that have manifested in the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda in the Mediterranean region by examining National Action Plans (NAPs) in two distinct sub-regions – the Western Balkans and North Africa. We develop a comparative framework to shed light on the dimension of participation of these plans in four countries where the debate on WPS has reached different stages: Bosnia–Herzegovina, Kosovo, Tunisia and Morocco. By empirically investigating participation as both modality and focus of WPS debate and practice in these countries, we show that NAPs are unable to produce “meaningful local ownership” (Basini and Ryan 2016, 390) and that the international discourse on WPS should be re-thought to resonate with women’s needs, experiences and perspectives in post-conflict and post-revolutionary settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Resolution 1325
• Western Balkans
• North Africa
• participation
• civil society

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Laura Berlingozzi, Sara Borrillo, Silvia Cittadini, Bernardo Monzani, Elisa Piras, Ervjola Selenica and Mikhail Silvestro Sustersic for collaborating in the project “Enhancing Women’s Participation in Peace and Security - WEPPS.” They are grateful to all the interviewees who shared their thoughts and experiences, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on previous drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 At the conceptual level, scholars note the WPS' problematic relationship with the “securitarian paradigm” and militarism (Shepherd 2016; Aroussi 2021); the Agenda's pillars’ disparate weight (Pearson 2020); its narrow focus on women, neglecting men and masculinities, LGBT+ people and intersectional aspects (Hagen 2016; Davis and Stern 2019; Myrttinen 2019); the limits of strategic instrumentalism and risks of co-optation by neoliberalist and militarist forces (Goetz 2020; Lyytikäinen and Jauhola 2020); and “Global South” marginalisation in WPS discourse and practice (Basu 2016; Parashar 2019). At the empirical level, research highlights the gender gap among peace mediators and peacekeepers (Naraghi Anderlini 2020b; Council on Foreign Relations 2022); episodes of “malestreaming” in security sector reforms (Newby and Sebag 2021); “selectivity” in applying WPS Resolutions (Ní Aoláin and Valji 2019); and implementation obstacles (WILPF 2019) exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic (Naraghi Anderlini 2020a).

2 Recognizing that “local” CS is not a monolithic political force but instead comprises a range of actors with different backgrounds, interests, views and approaches to activism, in the interviews we sought to represent the diversity of women’s associations by including different generations, organisational forms and levels, and geographic origins.

3 Namely the paradigm for conflict prevention, resolution and resilience introduced by the UN 2015 peace-building architecture review (UN 2015a) and further consolidated by Security Council Resolution 2282 (UN 2016a) and General Assembly Resolution 70/262 (UN 2016b).

4 Research was conducted as part of the 2020 project “Enhancing Women’s Participation in Peace and Security – WEPPS,” implemented by a research team based at Pisa’s Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in partnership with Agency for Peacebuilding (AP) in Bologna (Italy). Funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), the WEPPS project involved: a) research on WPS implementation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tunisia (principal cases), Kosovo and Morocco (secondary cases) through qualitative methods (literature review, desk analysis and interviews); b) a dialogue and training program called “The WPS Agenda in the pandemic” involving WPS professionals in the four target-countries; c) publishing articles to foster critical analysis of the challenges of WPS implementation.

5 The WPS Index is the ranking elaborated by the Georgetown Institute for WPS in collaboration with the Oslo Peace Research Institute to benchmark countries’ progress in women’s inclusion, justice and security. For 2021/2022, the Index included 170 countries and calculated the world average of .721 on a maximum of .922 in Norway and minimum of .278 in Afghanistan, on a scale from 0 to 1 where 1 is the best possible and 0 the worst (Georgetown Institute for WPS 2021, 1–2).

6 For Morocco, the analysis does not include implementation, monitoring and evaluation phases since the country only adopted its first NAP in March 2022.

7 For a more detailed analysis of the Bosnian case, see: (Cittadini and della Valle 2022).

8 Bosnian women opened rehabilitation centres for GbV war victims and organised the first reconciliation meetings between women from different areas. Both the conflicting parties and the international community ignored their role, excluding them from the Dayton Peace Agreements (Björkdahl 2012).

9 Particularly interesting is the initiative “Peace with Woman’s Face” launched in 2013 by a network of CSOs to highlight the role women played in Bosnian history during and beyond the “90s war by publishing books, biographies and documentaries: https://horizonti.ba/en/projects/peace-with-womans-face/

10 For a more detailed analysis of the Kosovar case, see: (della Valle, et al. 2020).

11 In particular: Mimosa Kusari Lila (then Minister of Trade and Industry), Vlora Citaku (initially Minister of Foreign Affairs and later of European Integration), and Edita Tahiri (then Chief of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue).

12 For a more detailed analysis of the Tunisian case, see: (della Valle 2022).

13 See the inclusion of women’s rights in the 2014 Constitution, approval of the Loi intégrale sur la lutte contre la violence faite aux femmes, and abrogation of the discriminatory 1973 administrative circular preventing Tunisian women (but not men) from marrying non-Muslims.

14 On 25 July 2021, amid popular anger against the executive’s management of the economic and health crisis, President Kais Saied removed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspended parliament, assuming de facto power and triggering a still-ongoing institutional crisis.

15 For a more detailed analysis of the Moroccan case see: (Borrillo 2022).

16 In particular: “Med-Med Mediation Initiative in the Mediterranean” (2012); “Enhancing the civic and social engagement of women and youth in preventing violence and extremism” (2018); “Women4Mediterranean” (2020).

17 “Limited professionalisation” indicates a lack of financial/human resources and adequate training to implement larger activities and attract external funding, as well as the capacity to coordinate among different CSOs working on similar topics.

18 Since 2012, UAF has worked on raising awareness about UNSCR 1325, asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to participate in NAP drafting, and proposed working with the UN to establish coordination and monitoring mechanisms and impact evaluations. There has been little response, however.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI) – Directorate General for Political Affairs and Security: Decree dated 11/04/2019 for the granting of financial assistance under the third National Action Plan, adopted for the implementation of UNSCR 1325 (2000) on “Women Peace and Security” (D.D.G. n. 133/2019).

Notes on contributors

Clara della Valle

Clara della Valle is post-doctoral researcher and adjunct professor at the University of Bologna, where she works on gender and IR. In 2020, she was project manager and researcher of the project “Enhancing Women’s Participation in Peace and Security” (WEPPS) at the Pisa-based Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, from which she received a Ph.D. in 2019. She held a second-level Master’s degree from the College of Europe in Bruges (2015), a Master’s degree (2013) and a Bachelor’s degree (2010) from the LUISS University in Rome.

Francesco Strazzari

Francesco Strazzari is professor in International Relations at the Pisa-based Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, where he specialises in peace and conflict studies. He is also adjunct professor at the Bologna-based SAIS Europe (The Johns Hopkins University). He held positions at the University of Amsterdam (2005-2008) and at NUPI, Oslo (2013-2015). He received a Ph.D. from the European University Institute in 2003, a MA from NPSIA, Carleton University in 1996, and a laurea from the University of Bologna in 1994.