Update of January 2007: The initial phase of this programme has now been completed. Operational activities will resume as soon as the fundig situation permits. In the meantime, this programme website remains online for information purposes only.

For women and children the consequences of armed conflict are dramatically different from those that affect men. During and after most conflicts, women and children are exposed to outrageous human rights abuses, are increasingly targeted in a deliberate way, and are often used as scapegoats by warring parties. Women are the first ones to lose any protection international human rights law and humanitarian standards guarantee them in  times of peace. Women who survive the outbreak of wars are very often left behind both physically and psychologically crippled, having lost the socio-economic basis of their existence. The same applies to children, with an estimated two million killed in armed conflict over the past decade and three times as many who have been injured or left behind disabled.

With women and children accounting for over three quarters of the 40 million people around the world who have been displaced by war, internal conflicts and regional political turmoil, the success of future peace and security operations will depend even more on the ability to raise the peacekeepers’ awareness for the immeasurable and invisible effects of armed conflict on women and children, as well as their special needs during repatriation and resettlement.

At the same time there is a need to regard women not only as victims, but to acknowledge their important and complex role as partners in assistance operations, during post-conflict reconstruction, reconciliation and peacebuilding. It becomes increasingly important to introduce and maintain gender perspectives in multilateral peacekeeping operations to help peacekeepers adapt to the particular demographic structure of war-torn societies and to the requirement of operating in host countries with a predominantly female population.

UNITAR's training initiative 
UNITAR’s programme on the “TRAINING FOR CIVILIAN PERSONNEL IN PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS ON THE SPECIAL NEEDS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN CONFLICT” was designed for civilian personnel working in peace and security operations and is being organized in close cooperation with the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). It is a direct outcome of Security Council Resolution 1325, which "[r]equests the Secretary-General to provide to Member States training guidelines and materials on the protection, rights and particular needs of women, as well as the importance of involving women in all peacekeeping and peace-building measures" and which also "requests the Secretary-General to ensure that civilian personnel of peacekeeping operations receive similar training".

Main activities
UNITAR organizes several courses per yearfor civilian peacekeeping personnel complementary to the instruction courses that the Training and Evaluation Service (TES) of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations conducts for military and police forces. Training is usually provided at the site of UN peacekeeping missions although courses could also be organized elsewhere. The courses are designed to provide civilian personnel of peacekeeping operations with tailor-made training on the special needs of women and children in conflict in order to enhance the professional preparedness of civilian peacekeepers dealing with societies in and after armed conflict. The programme provides in-mission training to the civilian personnel of existing peacekeeping operations; develops and tests training modules that can potentially be used for the pre-deployment training of outgoing mission personnel, and provides training material in various formats to peacekeepers already posted in the field.

Cooperation with other organizations
UNITAR works closely with other international, national and regional organizations that are key players in the area. Through the involvement of all stakeholders in a pluralistic and transparent process, not only in receiving, but also in designing the training programme, UNITAR secures a common platform for the project. Cooperation is ongoing with a number of organizations whose expertise and input is vital to the success of this training initiative.

Funding
Development and implementation of this training initiative was made possible through funding received from the United Nations Foundation (UNF) through the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP), which covered the first year of the project. While the United Nations Foundation has continued some support of the programme into 2006, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) joined the initiative as an important sponsor, supporting this UNITAR training programme from its second year until the present time.
 

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