Women's Participation in Peace Processes

Despite women’s contribution to preventing and resolving conflicts, they are often excluded from peace negotiations. Women’s participation in peace processes can improve outcomes before, during, and after conflict. There are three requirements for this to occur: an explicit women’s agenda, access to the peace process, and advocacy within the process. The participation of women’s groups is only correlated with positive negotiation outcomes if they have strong influence on the process. Influence is measured in two ways: the first is the extent to which the included actors brought specific topics related to the conflict cases to the agenda and/or whether these were integrated into the agreement. The second is the extent to which actors pushed for initiating negotiations or reaching an agreement. Women’s group involvement in the peace process does not hinder reaching agreements; instead, women’s inclusion is associated with an increased likelihood of an agreement being reached.