2012maygenderpeacesecurityafrica_2-3d0f5b8411c40e69.pdf

This report documents a one-day brainstorming session held on 4 May 2012 in Nairobi, Kenya, co-hosted by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), the African Leadership Centre (ALC), and Fahamu. The session aimed to map current discourses on gender, peace and security (GPS) in Africa, identify research gaps, and explore the creation of a pan-African think-tank to produce homegrown, evidence-based scholarship that moves beyond state-centric and Northern-led narratives.

• Research on gender, peace and security (GPS) in Africa is predominantly produced outside the continent, leaving African researchers as "suppliers of raw data and consumers of knowledge" rather than primary producers of knowledge or policy advice.
• Current GPS discourse is often limited by a state-centric view of security and a focus on "women as victims," failing to address the structural causes of insecurity or the agency of African women.
• A DCAF study of 14 West African countries found that while gender policies and action plans against gender-based violence (GBV) exist, they are often treated as "stand-alone documents" and are not integrated into day-to-day security operations or standard operating procedures (SOPs).
• Gender training within the African security sector is heavily skewed toward peacekeeping requirements for deployment, with a significant lack of data regarding its actual impact on the behavior of personnel or its internalization within national security agency policies.
• There are significant research gaps in GPS regarding the security of women in border communities, the role of private security, and the specific experiences of Lusophone, Francophone, and North African regions.
• The session concluded with a proposal to form a pan-African think-tank/network on GPS to pool resources and generate theories derived from the African context, with an initial working group tasked with identifying three priority research areas.

APA

Institute for Security Studies (n.d.). 2012maygenderpeacesecurityafrica_2-3d0f5b8411c40e69.pdf. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/2012MayGenderPeaceSecurityAfrica_2.pdf

Chicago

Institute for Security Studies. 2012maygenderpeacesecurityafrica_2-3d0f5b8411c40e69.pdf. n.d. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/2012MayGenderPeaceSecurityAfrica_2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Security Studies |title=2012maygenderpeacesecurityafrica_2-3d0f5b8411c40e69.pdf |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/2012MayGenderPeaceSecurityAfrica_2.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforsecuritystudiesnd2012maygenderpeacesecurityafrica23d0f5b8411c40e69pdf, author = {{Institute for Security Studies}}, title = {{2012maygenderpeacesecurityafrica\_2-3d0f5b8411c40e69.pdf}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/2012MayGenderPeaceSecurityAfrica_2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }