Africa’s Peace Needs Her: Why Gender Equality in Peacekeeping Matters Now More Than Ever

In the heart of Africa’s conflict zones, where peace can feel elusive and communities are rebuilding amid deep scars of war, a powerful truth is emerging; when women lead, peace endures. As the world prepares to mark 25 years since the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, and 30 years since the landmark Beijing Declaration, the call for gender equality in peacekeeping has never been more urgent especially for Africa.

The continent remains one of the most conflict-affected regions globally, with ongoing violence in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Sahel, and beyond. Yet, despite women bearing the brunt of these crises from displacement to gender-based violence they remain drastically underrepresented in the very missions meant to restore peace.

The Gender Gap in African Peacekeeping

As of January 2025, women comprise only 10% of UN uniformed peacekeeping personnel globally, with just 8.8% in military roles and 21% in police roles. The numbers are even lower in leadership positions, where less than 3% of generals or equivalent ranks are women (UN Peacekeeping, 2025).

In Africa, these disparities are compounded by systemic challenges in national security sectors. Many African militaries and police forces lack gender-inclusive recruitment pipelines, facilities suited for female personnel, or policies that support women’s advancement. According to a 2023 policy brief by the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF), persistent stereotypes and institutional barriers continue to stall progress across African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa.

“Women peacekeepers are not just symbols they are effective agents of change,” says Lt. Colonel Rubana Nowshin Mithila, a Bangladeshi officer who served in UN missions in Côte d’Ivoire and South Sudan (UN Women, 2025). Her observation rings particularly true in Africa, where community trust is critical to peacekeeping success.

Why Representation Matters

Peacekeeping missions in Africa often rely on community engagement, intelligence gathering, and post-conflict reconciliation. Here, the presence of women peacekeepers can be transformative.

In many African societies, cultural and historical dynamics limit women’s interaction with male security personnel. Female peacekeepers bridge this gap especially in addressing sexual and gender-based violence, a tragic reality for many African women and girls in conflict zones. According to UN Women, 95% of reported sexual violence cases in conflict zones involve female victims.

Female peacekeepers also act as role models, empowering local women and girls to participate in peace dialogues and rebuilding efforts. “They create space for conversations that male counterparts simply cannot access,” says Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, former UN Women Executive Director and South African politician. “They shift perceptions, not only within communities but within the peacekeeping structures themselves” (UN Women, 2022).

African Women Leading Peace at the Grassroots

Beyond formal peacekeeping missions, African women have long been at the forefront of grassroots peacebuilding. From the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, who helped end a brutal civil war in the early 2000s, to today’s women-led community safety groups in Mali and northern Nigeria, their impact is profound.

A 2022 study by UN Women found that peace agreements are 35% more likely to last at least 15 years when women are involved in the negotiation process. Yet, according to the African Union, women made up just 7% of negotiators in peace processes on the continent between 1992 and 2019 (African Union, 2020).

The Path Forward: Reform and Resilience

Addressing the gender imbalance in peacekeeping and security in Africa requires a multi-layered approach:

• Security Sector Reform (SSR): Gender-responsive SSR is crucial. This means not just recruiting more women, but transforming institutions to accommodate their needs from providing appropriate equipment and healthcare to tackling internal biases and discriminatory promotion systems (DCAF, 2023).
• Goal-Setting and Accountability: The UN’s Uniformed Gender Parity Strategy (UGPS 2018–2028) provides clear benchmarks. By 2028, women should constitute at least 15% of military personnel in troop contingents and 30% of individual police officers. Countries like Ghana and Rwanda are making strides toward these goals, often outpacing global averages (UN Peacekeeping, 2025).
• Funding Initiatives Like the Elsie Fund: Since 2019, the Elsie Initiative Fund hosted by UN Women has supported 33 security institutions in 21 countries, including several in Africa. By improving infrastructure, training, and policy, the Fund helps remove practical and cultural barriers to women’s deployment in peace operations (Elsie Fund, 2024).
• Supporting Women’s Organizations: The Beijing+30 agenda urges governments to finance women-led organizations in crisis contexts. In Africa, these groups often operate on shoestring budgets, yet their work from providing trauma counseling in the DRC to negotiating ceasefires in Sudan is vital to sustainable peace.

Berlin and Beyond: The Moment to Act

This month, Member States will gather in Berlin for the 2025 UN Peacekeeping Ministerial. One of the key agenda items will be new models of peacekeeping proposed in a 2024 UN special report. These models emphasize agility, community integration, and gender inclusivity.

Africa’s voice must be loud in that room and it must call for a peacekeeping system that reflects the realities on the ground. A system that acknowledges women not as passive victims of war, but as active agents of peace.

As we look to the future, the message is clear: gender equality in peacekeeping is not a side issue. It is a central pillar of security in Africa and the world.

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