Professor Catherine Powell co-authored a Council on Foreign Relations blog post about former secretary-general of the UN Kofi Annan following his death.
On August 18th, Kofi Annan—the seventh secretary-general of the UN—passed away. He should be remembered not only for his work to fight poverty, eliminate HIV/AIDS, and promote economic development, but also for his efforts to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security, which was adopted unanimously during Annan’s first term as secretary-general in October 2000.
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[E]mpirical evidence suggests that involving women in peace processes is at least correlated with more favorable results, and advances the likelihood of sustainable peace. In the Nation, Catherine wrote about how women, more than men, tend to focus on “positive peace,” i.e. building strong institutions that prevent new conflict, as well as “negative peace,” or the simple absence of conflict. Rather than being inherently more peaceful, women’s social experience—for instance their role as primary care-takers, or exclusion from combat—imbues them with experiential differences that bring new and important perspectives to the table.Resolution 1325 was an important moment for opening a conversation about the specific needs of women in conflict and relief zones, and the importance of including women in efforts to create lasting peace. The Resolution was adopted thanks to advocacy efforts by civil society and member states, and importantly, buy-in from UN leadership. And for that, in large part, we can thank Kofi Annan.