Understanding Gender, Conflict and the Environment

Jun 5, 2017 | Doug Weir
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Last year’s landmark UNEA-2 resolution on conflict and the environment, the most significant of its kind since 1992, was the product of tough negotiations. Fortunately however, a hard-fought reference on gender made the final version of the text: ‘further recognising specific negative effects of environmental degradation on women and the need to apply a gender perspective with respect to the environment and armed conflicts’. Alexandria Reid suggests that the reference itself is unquestionably a positive step. But to effectively incorporate this gender perspective in future policy, we need to do more than just recognise the effects. Instead we need to fully understand and clarify what gendered approaches mean in the context of conflict, peacebuilding and the environment.