"La Lutte Continue": the Role of the UNSCR 1325 National Action Plan in Promoting Women's Participation in Peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Pipinato, Chiara

4. term

Global Refugee Studies, Master

2023

2023-05-31

68 pages

This thesis intends to understand the effects of the launch of the Women Peace and Security National Action Plan in the context of peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, looking at the limitations and how local organizations can overcome these limitations. Using the politics of scale lens, it emerged that due to the limited funding, the socio-cultural burdens, and the inability of the National Action Plan to be effective on the local level, its impact in the field of promoting a fair inclusion of women in peacebuilding remains mainly symbolic. However, organizations use this symbolism to overcome its limitations by playing on different scales and using the narrative of how things “should be”. This results in an increased role of women’s organization when promoting women’s inclusion in peacebuilding in the 1325 resolution context, which not only increases their space of dependence locally, but also produces spaces of engagement by installing “network of associations” to reach their goals in a more effective and impactful way. As a result, they become interlocutors on different scales -local, national, and international- becoming a Congolese political actor and representing the country as whole.

UNSCR Resolution 1325 ; National Action Plan ; The Democratic Republic of the Congo ; Peacebuilding ; Women’s Organizations

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