The APRM has focused its on long term strategies to build enabling conditions for
peace as well as short term interventions where violence is imminent. In fact, it is in
these areas that APRM has been acclaimed as having diagnostic value as an early
warning system. By listening to diverse social groups, communities and political
actors, APRM has been able to detect areas of structural violence that require
immediate or longer term interventions. In the review of South Africa and Kenya for
example, the APRM picked up indications of tension and of pending and actual
violence in both countries that were communicated to various stakeholders.
Strategies that focus on preventing the immediate outbreak of violence and managing
structural governance deficits that build up to violence are critical. Gender responsive
early warning systems and gender analyses that include women and gender issues
as part of early warning efforts are recommended the UN.209 In their various roles of
preserving ‘social order’210 and as primary care givers and in their domestic roles,
women can gather significant information on social unrest and provide critical inputs
into information gathering and conflict early warning systems. As such, a gender-blind
early warning system is of little value in the detection gender violence.
All regions
and most countries have developed early warning systems for conflict with different
capabilities and focus but not all have integrated gender aspects in these systems.
Women’s inclusion in peace processes is not limited to the negotiation table and
women can participate at various levels.211 Women’s social capital and the multiple
networks they bring to the negotiating table makes them an invaluable part of the
solution to peacebuilding.212 However, these networks and capabilities remain largely
untapped in formal peace processes. Whether formally or informally, women have
organised and constituted networks of influencers to promote peacebuilding
processes, although facing constraints at each level. The example below illustrates
the value of women and men involved in conflict resolution and peacebuilding
initiatives that can also serve as early warning mechanisms. These are in many
209
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
210
Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, 1995
211
‘Making Women Count: Women’s Inclusion in Peace Processes at a Glance’, Geneva: Inclusive Peace and
Transition Initiative (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies), January 2016.
212
Gizelis T I ‘Gender Empowerment and United Nations Peacebuilding’ Journal of Peace Research vol. 46, no.
4, 2009 (Sage Publications)
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