f) Security sector governance The APRM assessment tool does not focus specifically on security sector governance but it is a running theme across the pillar. In fact, it is often identified as a special or cross cutting issue during country reviews, requiring special attention. In several countries APRM recommendations to reform security sectors towards gender responsiveness have featured prominently in NPoAs, resulting in governments integrating them in their NPoA. There is evidence that women activists have used these recommendations in countries like Uganda, Mozambique, Kenya, Zambia and Ghana to lobby for stronger laws on security to combat SGBV, resulting in more effective laws being enacted.232 Women require strong security sectors to protect them in times of peace and even more so during conflict. In the post conflict phase the restoration of law and order for civilian and demobilised populations becomes even more critical. Circumstances in which women have been exposed to violence in any of these phases requires effective, inclusive and gender responsive justice and transitional justice systems. It is important that peace agreements touch on post conflict arrangements for strengthened security sector reforms with increased recruitment of women who are gender sensitive. Demobilisation, Disarmament and Rehabilitation (DDR) programs that do not draw on women’s participation or experiences constrain effective disarmament, as women are not always passive or unwilling players in a conflict. Women may join violent conflicts as combatants or serve as proxies, supporters and providers of supplies and information to belligerents for cause, status or profit. The motivations for such participation and the experiences of these women may relay changing gender roles where women seek to equalise the power relations at a wider societal level and benefit from the increased agency, economic gain and influence that such roles provide. 232 UNECA ‘Gender Equality and the APRM’ UNECA 2016 80