Special Needs of Women and Children in Conflict: Objective

Familiarize peacekeeping staff with the specific needs of women and children during and after armed conflict;
Refresh the participants’ knowledge in selected areas of international law that provide protection for women and children;
Raise their awareness for the demographic structure of war torn-societies and for the consequences of conflict on women and children, including their political and economic marginalization;
Enable them to understand the important role that women (and even children) can play as partners in assistance operations, during reconstruction, reconciliation and peace-building, and why their contributions to peace-building should be encouraged;
Expose them to, and let them critically examine, the culture, history and social norms of the host country with a focus on gender relations;
Provide training on the social behaviour required to deal with local counterparts in daily encounters in the field, including contacts with the local governmental and administrative structures;
Increase their understanding for the challenges, but also advantages of operating in a cross-cultural environment and, thus, help them to become reliable and responsible members of multi-dimensional peacekeeping operations;
Look at reconstruction efforts in the mission area with a focus on women and children;
Publicize and support the United Nations' "zero tolerance" policy in preventing and addressing cases of peacekeeping staff committing acts of sexual exploitation and abuse;
Inspire peacekeeping staff to address women’s and children’s concerns in their daily work;
Provide a forum for sharing experiences and exchanging views on gender mainstreaming and child protection in the mission’s area of operation.

Our approach to training combines four pedagogical pillars:

Concept learning, through brief presentations, lectures and visual aides;
Role-playing, through gaming and simulation exercises;.

Real-world exposure, through case studies, illustrations of good practice, lessons learned and videos;
Experience sharing, through working-group exercises, round table discussions and participant interaction.

Taken together, these pillars enable participants to acquire an understanding of issues and processes from multiple angles, as well as skills, techniques and know-how to function more effectively and efficiently.

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.