Peace & Stability Journal Special 25th Anniversary Edition | Page 50

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, to include U.S. strategic guidance and U.N. Security Council Resolutions, has put the need to integrate gender perspectives into military institutions and operations at the forefront of discussions by the military gender community of experts, practitioners and military personnel. The 2011 and 2016 U.S. National Action plans both stated that DOD needed to “Ensure all relevant U.S. personnel and contractors receive appropriate training on Women, Peace, and Security issues, including instruction on the value of inclusive participation in conflict prevention, peace processes, and secu- rity initiatives, international human rights law and international humanitarian law, protection of civilians, prevention of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), prevention of sexual ex- ploitation and abuse (SEA), and combat¬ing trafficking in per- sons (TIP).” 1 Seven of the UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS also state the need for training. The twin challenges of developing new curricula and teaching materials on gender and on WPS, and integrating gender dimensions across all military education and training is a dilemma presented to trainers and educators. This dilemma is not one only the U.S. faces, but is a concern of the WPS/gender community around the world. The Nordic Center for Gender in Military Operations (NCGM) was desig- nated as the NATO Department Head for Gender Training in 2013. The Center delivers courses for Key Leaders, Command- ing Officers, Gender Advisors and Gender Trainers. Since the courses are conducted in Sweden where only a few can attend each year, the SSR and Education and Development Working Groups of the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes (PfPC) conducted a series of workshops on gender training and education. These activities demonstrated there is a need to strengthen both the capacity of educators to integrate gender in their work and the capacity of military gender experts to deliver educational content. Workshop participants expressed the need for more materials and resources to support the building of faculty and gender experts’ on the integration of gender in military educa- tion. The final product of the workshops was a handbook titled “Teaching Gender in the Military” published in 2016. 2 Until recently, much of the training on gender within the U.S. military has been externally delivered and/or ad-hoc. There certainly has been a significant need to institutionalize and improve gender-related training and education within the U.S. military, but this is difficult to do without requirements or resources. With the passing of the WPS Act of 2017, 3 the requirement for training within the strategy no longer makes it an option. The Act states “The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that relevant personnel receive training, as appropriate, in the following areas: (1) Training in conflict prevention, peace processes, mitigation, resolution, and security initiatives that specifically addresses the importance of meaningful partici- pation by women. (2) Gender considerations and meaningful participation by women, including training regarding—(A) international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as relevant; and (B) protecting civilians from violence, ex- ploitation, and trafficking in persons. (3) Effective strategies and best practices for ensuring meaningful participation by women. 4 The development of the curricula and teaching materials on gender and on WPS remains a challenge due to limited resourc- es, but through fortunate circumstances of people in the right place at the right time, this effort is slowly coming to fruition. In addition to the Teaching Gender in the Military Handbook, the PfP Consortium was instrumental in the development of the first computer based online training course on Gender Awareness. This course titled “Improving Operational Effective- ness by Integrating Gender Perspective” was initially based only on the NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) Joint Advanced Distributed Learning ( JADL) Management System. However, the course is now hosted on Joint Knowledge Online Office ( JKO), allowing easier access for U.S. military personnel, any civilian with a common access card, foreign military mem- bers, and anyone else that could be sponsored by a government member. JKO recently updated this course making it more in- teractive for students. JKO also hosts the updated “Role of the Gender Advisor” course. The ability to access this course allows members being assigned this role an initial place to learn more about this position prior to attending an in-residence program. Based upon attendance at and access to the in-residence course materials presented in the Australian Defence Force Gender 48