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The field of gender, conflict, and peacebuilding has emerged over recent decades; become institutionalized through policymaking, legal practice, and the development of practitioner models; and been enhanced through academic research.
Significant gaps remain in the understanding and awareness of the gendered dimensions of conflict and its legacies.
The field must overcome a tendency to reduce gender sensitivity to a focus on women.
Gender identities and norms-as well as the systems, institutions, traditions of practice, and patterns of attitudes that support them-are crucial to conflict dynamics and responses. Both men and women are involved in inflicting violence and are its victims, defying a simplistic classification of roles.
.Sexual violence is a widespread though not universal phenomenon during conflict. It is employed selectively, for strategic reasons, and targets men as well as women.
. During transitions from conflict, gender concerns are rarely taken into account adequately. Gender-based violence, especially against women, often persists. Also, most transitional justice processes have failed to afford a safe space for victims to talk about the violence they experienced and to redress the harms they have suffered.
USIP grantmaking has supported notable work on gender identities, sexual violence, and women's rights and empowerment, as well as organizations that focus on women's issues. Relatively few of the funded projects, however, have focused primarily on gender.
The field must embrace a broader concept of gender, examine in-depth the gendered aspects of security and peacebuilding, more fully appreciate the nature of conflict through a gender lens, and develop better ways to undertake gender-sensitive post conflict measures.
