factors that underlie structural violence including gender inequality and violence against women. Inculcating the conditions, cultures and mechanisms that promote social relations between men and women is a key area of good governance. In states that do not create the conditions to combat unequal power relations between men and women through laws, regulatory frameworks and measures to modify social conduct, women are more often at risk of systemic violence in the public and private spheres. The outbreak of violent conflict emboldens the further oppression and targeting of women as a social group, and post conflict recovery initiatives that do not link these occurrences further entrench women’s marginalisation and suffering. While the term peacebuilding is often used in the context of cessation of hostilities, experts caution against viewing peacebuilding as a post conflict activity but rather, as a continuum of approaches before, during and after conflict.88 The term peacebuilding gained traction from 1992 after being emphasised in the address of UN Secretary General Boutros Ghali’s Report to the UN Security Council which focused on post conflict peacebuilding as a strategy to forestall recurrence of conflict.89 Two decades later, UN Secretary General Guterres’s Report on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace of 2018 reflects the current understanding of peacebuilding as applicable during times of peace, during the war and the recovery phase.90 Reinforcing General Assembly Resolution 70/262 and Security Council Resolution 2282 (2016), the UN Secretary General emphasises that sustaining peace is imperative to preventing the outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict.91 One school of thought posits the importance of addressing women’s needs based on transitions between different phases of conflict rather than focusing on one phase at a time, since not all women are involved in all phases and phases may not necessarily unfold chronologically.92 It is indeed the case with intrastate wars that some regions 88 International Peace Institute ‘Governance, Peacebuilding, and State-Society Relations: The International Expert Forum’ November 17, 2015. Available at https://www.ipinst.org/2015/11/twenty-first-centurypeacebuilding-international-expert-forum#17 89 ‘Report of the Secretary-General ‘An Agenda for Peace Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping’ A/47/277 - S/24111 17 June 1992 90 Report of the Secretary General ‘Peacebuilding and sustaining peace’ General Assembly Security Council Seventy-second Session Agenda item 65 18 January 2018 A/72/707–S/2018/43 91 UN General Assembly ‘Report of the Secretary General: Peace Building and Sustaining Peace’ A/72/707– S/2018/43 92 Bouta T, `Frerks J `Women’s roles in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and post conflict reconstruction” Netherlands Institute of International Relations, The Hague 2002 36