Introduction
More than two decades of empirical and peer-reviewed research establishes direct links between the status of women and a country’s propensity for violence (cumulative research is summarized in the Literature Review in Annex A); the importance of women’s participation in conflict prevention and resolution efforts; and the necessity of integrating gender in such efforts. Despite a growing wealth of evidence documented by women, peace, and security (WPS) researchers and significant growth of the normative framework around WPS, challenges remain in the development and integration of gender-sensitive indicators in early warning systems for conflict and violence.
To advance these efforts, IFES and State/CSO undertook this project to develop the Gender-Sensitive Indicators for Early Warning of Violence and Conflict: A Global Framework. This global framework is the culmination of this project and includes a set of new and modified qualitative and quantitative gender-sensitive indicators that can enhance the effectiveness of global risk analyses, early warning systems, and violence monitoring efforts.
This global framework supports the objectives set out in the U.S. Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017, which calls for the perspectives and interests of affected women to be integrated in conflict prevention activities and strategies; and for the collection and analysis of gender data for the purpose of developing and enhancing early warning systems of conflict and violence.1 This framework supports the U.S. State Department’s commitments under its Implementation Plan2 on the U.S. Strategy on Women, Peace, and Security of 2019.3 It further complements the goals set out in the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 to strengthen the diplomatic, risk analysis and monitoring, strategic planning, early warning and response capacities of the U.S. government as part of its strategy to identify, prevent and respond to the risk of atrocities.4 The framework also supports U.S. government efforts to implement the Global Fragility Act of 2019, which aims to strengthen U.S. efforts to stabilize conflict-affected areas and prevent violence globally.5
The global framework consists of four key components:
1
An overview of previous efforts and associated challenges with integrating gender in early warning systems, as identified through a comprehensive literature review and consultations with gender and early warning systems experts and data specialists.
2
A list of new and modified gender-sensitive indicators for integration in early warning systems, including the rationale for why these were chosen, suggested definitions and proposed data collection strategies. The gender-sensitive indicators are grouped in four categories: 1) security and justice; 2) politics and governance; 3) social norms and gender equality; and 4) economic factors.
3
Summary findings from the pilot conducted to test an adapted selection of the indicators in nine states in Nigeria, including guidance on gender-sensitive data collection (the full report on the pilot is included as Annex B).
4
Recommendations for integrating gender-sensitive indicators in existing local, national, regional, and global early warning systems and outlining the limitations of the framework, ongoing challenges relating to gender-sensitive early warning indicators, and future opportunities to build on this work.