A different kind of mission: How UN peacekeeping forces will benefit from more women in their ranks
OpenCanada speaks with Elizabeth Spehar, head of the UN’s peacekeeping force in Cyprus, about a ‘burgeoning sisterhood’ of women leaders, the importance of the Elsie Initiative and why more women are needed in peace operations.
Last week, after much speculation as to how Justin Trudeau’s Liberals would deliver on their peacekeeping commitments, the Canadian government announced it would be deploying helicopters and support troops to West Africa as part of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Mali.
The announcement will go some ways to fulfilling the Liberals’ 2016 promise to commit $450 million and up to 600 troops and roughly 150 police officers to UN peacekeeping missions. With this deployment, which will reportedly include a marked female presence, Canada also hopes to “walk the walk” when it comes to its push to have more women in peace operations.
In 2015, a UN Security Council resolution called for the doubling of the number of uniformed women involved in military and police peacekeeping operations within five years. But since its adoption, the number of women deployed has risen only from 4.2 percent to 4.4 percent.
In response, last November Canada launched the Elsie Initiative on Women in Peace Operations, named for the world’s first woman aeronautical engineer, Canadian Elsie MacGill, who designed and manufactured her own planes during World War II.
Earlier this month, at the 62nd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York City, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told a packed room: “The Elsie Initiative is an opportunity for us to work alongside countries that have tremendous experience in peacekeeping and are themselves trying to deploy more women and advance the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.”
Continue reading at OpenCanada.org