Women emphasises the importance building the capacity of women and women’s groups, so that they can participate fully in peace processes.325 One study posits that societies which are more gender equal are less likely move away from peace to civil war and more likely to return to peace in the event of a civil war, relating this to the ‘pacifying impact of gender equality’.326 A marker of this is the proportion of female representatives in parliament who can influence anti-war actions and whose influence may be exponentially linked to the level or norms of institutional democracy in a country.327 Such influence can also best be wielded when there is a critical mass of female representatives, bringing into play the Beijing recommended minimum threshold of 30% women representatives. A correlation between women’s empowerment and gender equality and successful countering of violent extremism strategies has been evidenced in Morocco.328 The opportunities that governance processes offer in undertaking necessary reforms for peacebuilding cannot be overemphasized. In the process of promoting gender equality, some significant reforms have been undertaken in pre-conflict and postconflict situations, underpinned by women’s strong advocacy in peace processes. One of UNIFEM’s successful approaches involved focusing on legal reforms on discriminatory laws, leading to a gender equality bill in Sierra Leone.329 UNIFEM also linked up with women’s organization to support women during 2004 elections in Rwanda, leading to a female presidential candidate being fielded an increase in the number of women in the executive and legislature. c) Climate change Traditionally, peacebuilding strategies did not always necessarily take into account climate change. However with intrastate wars on the rise, while there is no research to conclusively establish causal linkages between conflict and climate change, climate 325 UN Commission on the Status of Women `Women’s equal participation in conflict prevention, management and conflict resolution and in post-conflict peace-building` Forty-eighth session 1-12 March 2004 326 Melander, E ‘Gender Equality and Intrastate Armed Conflict. 2005 International Studies Quarterly 49 (4) 327 ibid 328 Couture K L ‘A Gendered Approach to Countering Violent Extremism Lessons Learned from Women in Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention Applied Successfully in Bangladesh and Morocco’ 2014 Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings 329 Progress report of the Secretary-General ‘Implementation of the recommendations contained in the report of the Secretary-General on the causes of conflict and promotion of durable peace and sustainable development in Africa’ UN General Assembly August 2005 A/60/182 104