Description
In 2010, 26 indicators tracking implementation of UNSC Resolution 1325 were developed for use within the United Nations (UN) system. However, the UN as an institution has not found it easy to develop practices and processes to interpret these indicators across various UN agencies. Indeed, indicators and their development and use are made through contested social and political processes. All too often, we accept the “black box” and do not fully realise or notice the compromises made in the production of that specific technology. Compromises include the goals being set, and the extent to which they achieve feminist and/or gender goals. Drawing on interviews carried out in New York during 2016 and 2017, alongside analysis of the annual Secretary-General reports on UNSCR 1325, this paper hones in on indictor ten, which purposes to measure the ’percentage of field missions with senior level gender experts’. I explore the development and use of this indicator to unpack how particular ideas about ’gender expertise’ are produced, contested and shaped, and how this has gendered ramifications within peace mediation, peacebuilding and peacekeeping contexts. I argue that this taps into important questions about who has the authority to act in the name of ‘gender expertise’.
