3.2. The framework of post-conflict peacebuilding, reconstruction and development
3.2.4. Governance and participation
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under the most susceptible group of people in society, the AU/NEPAD Post-conflict Reconstruction Policy Framework lays emphasis for their increase participation in post- conflict processes. As per this policy, a focus on women’s special needs and aspirations is distinguished to impact on livelihood, health, education and socio-economic development at large (NEPAD Secretariat 2005:12 & 23). The African Union draft PCRD Policy Framework equally underscores the implementation of social and economic policies that tackle gender inequality. It stresses the need to safeguard women’s fundamental socio-economic rights and efforts in all dimensions of the post-conflict peace consolidation (African Union 2006:15 &
19). This, however, has to be synchronized with the reform governance and public administration systems and institutions to maintain equilibrium in the post-conflict processes.
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According to Orr (2002:140-141) governance and participation can be perceived as a requisite interactive and collaborative practice between the government (top-down governance process) and the governed (bottom-up participatory process). Advancing this pillar necessitates for indigenous voices to be heard through participation in official government and local elections; engagements in political parties; active civil society compositions and interactions via advocacy groupings, media outlets and civic organizations; thus local ownership of the processes (Orr 2002:141). This simply means that the effectiveness of governance reform agendas depends on the genre and form of the post-conflict political leadership and its capacity to drive human and institutional development, deliver services and empower the population to be actively involved (United Nations 2009:4). This as such goes beyond the dependence on governments to include the essential capacity of the civil society and the importance of decentralization of power as a mechanism to increase local representation and accountability and as an approach to a national vision for nation-building (African Union 2006:11).
In this phase of post-conflict, enhancing participation needs to be undergirded by operational leadership, which must tally with the promotion of gender equality. UN Women advocate for responsive governance that advances women’s human rights and takes into consideration the social affairs that emasculate their fitness to proactively contribute to public decision- making, while reacting to exclusionary practices against them (UNIFEM 2008:2). Vying for governance reforms that are more gender responsive connotes the interests, needs and priorities of women, specifically their access to socio-economic, political and security welfare, must be effectively addressed by the institutions in place (UNIFEM 2008:2). This is to say reforms undertaken in the post-conflict must bring about greater accountability to women by guaranteeing their human and civil rights, equal privileges to hold positions of leadership, and contribute to decision-making both as elites and grassroots women (African Union 2006:11
& 12).
In the context of this fore-discussed theory, it is critical for post-conflict mechanisms to be inclusive and responsive to the needs of the citizens in accessing the benefits that should accrue when a society and a people transition from conflict. Evidently, the theoretical discourses on how peace is built in the aftermath of conflict lay quite some emphasis on
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operational mainstreaming of gender, especially of women who often are under-represented, into the agendas as a mainstay of inclusiveness. This theoretical framework of post-conflict recovery is of relevance because it is within the theory’s pillars of activities that this study examines and addresses inquiries about the instrumentality and progression of women’s role in Liberia’s peacebuilding architecture. Being in line with the first research question and objective of this study, the discussions and analyses presented in chapters five and six particularly delve into how women individually and as organizations, and through government and development partners’ support, navigate these post-conflict processes. So in expounding the trend of post-conflict activities, note is taken that the theory underscores the indispensability of various actors and stakeholders for the purposes of effective implementation. Acknowledging that state and international interventions are major constitutive components in ensuring successful and sustainable processes in this framework of peacebuilding, reconstruction and development theory will likewise enable understanding of one of the study’s objectives on how these actors support women’s peacebuilding agency.
From the cited position of the African Union, the United Nations, and the policy contexts above, this gender dimension (women focused) is understood to unlock the window of opportunity for effective post-conflict processes, seeing as they accentuate the agency of women’s access and inclusion as an imperative. An important point highlighted in the previous chapter is the tendency to exclude women in post-conflict processes despite the brunt of violence and insecurity, broken relationships, and socio-economic and political injustices they bear during conflicts. Hence in view of current debates, this theoretical and policy transference actually lends power to women’s voices, since women in conflict and post- conflict societies39 are continually organizing to seize the processes and (re)claim their positions as architects of change. In this respect, the language of women’s needs and interests is of particular importance from the conceptualization phase through to the operationalization of the post-conflict peacebuilding, reconstruction and development interventions. However, the question about how these interests are and should be considered is not an instinctive equation in the processes. As such, this necessitates the harmonization of
39 A few examples here include Liberia, South Africa, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Sudan and South Sudan, DRC, Burundi, Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic, etc.
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women’s interests, which the literature review chapter asserted to be systematically advanced under the patronage of women organizations. To understand this trend of thoughts, knowledge is acquired from Maxine Molyneux’s organizational theory, where she discursively assesses the distinctiveness of women’s organizations, as well as women’s practical and strategic gender interests, which are often at the centre of their agency for a cause.