Formal peace negotiations, mediations or peace agreements offer moments in time to course correct on a number of governance issues and participation in them is the key. In 2004 the UN Secretary General noted that peace agreements for the most part excluded gender equality and the status of women within the post-conflict society and displayed gender neutral language and content, with no recognition of women’s priorities and concerns.196 It is estimated that out of 1,168 peace agreements signed between January 1990 and January 2014 globally, only 18 percent made any references to women or gender.197Only 3 out of 11 peace agreements signed in 2017 contained gender-responsive provisions, while only 25 agreements out of 1500 peace agreements adopted between 2000 and 2016 referred to women’s engagement roles in the implementation phase.198 This does not bode well for post conflict phases that can foster gender responsive governance or adequately respond to women’s needs. Electing more women into decision making structures like legislatures is important for enabling a critical mass of women to influence laws that impact on gender, peace and security. However, even where women are elected into office, they may not necessary hold meaningful positions or wield substantial influence. Women caucuses in parliament often lack the skills and influence due to heavily male oriented patronage systems in legislatures, and patriarchal constituencies. The regional Parliaments of ECOWAS, EAC, Inter-Parliamentary Committee of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and ECOWAS in 2013 called for the increased representation for women parliamentarians on committees for security and defence issues cooperation.199 Participation in formal peace processes is an essential element of women’s exercise of their right to make decisions on matters of public interest. However, negotiating delegations mostly comprise of appointed rather than elected delegates, at which stage women drop off the lists over male preference. By March 2019 UN Women estimated women’s involvement in formal peace processes 1990 and 2017 at only 2 196 UN Commission on the Status of Women ` Women’s equal participation in conflict prevention, management and conflict resolution and in post-conflict peace-building Report of the Secretary General` 22 December 2003 E/CN.6/2004/10, Christine Chinkin, background paper presented at the expert group meeting held in Ottawa, November 2003 (see para. 2 and note 1). 197 Bell ‘Text and Context: Evaluating Peace Agreements for their ‘Gender Perspective.’ 198 UN Security Council ‘Report of the Secretary-General on women peace and security’ (2018) (S/2018/900) 199 The Role of Parliament In Conflict Prevention and Management In West Africa: Regional Conference organized jointly by the National Assembly of Côte d’Ivoire and the Inter-Parliamentary Union-Abidjan, 28-30 October 2013 71