Description
In the last decade, calls for gender parity and WPS agenda implementation in multilateral peace operations have increased. At the same time, so has attention to local ownership, host community relationships, and protection of civilians (POC). These key priorities merge in strategies for gendered community engagement, including the tactical use of mixed-gender engagement teams and platoons (ETs and EPs) in the United Nations’ military peacekeeping.
ETs and EPs in the UN build on examples of the US, UK, and Australian militaries in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both are cited as important to increasing women’s participation in peace operations and improving missions’ capabilities to interact with women and girls in host communities. Despite these claims of improved operational effectiveness, little data on their activities and effects has actually been collected, and evidence of effects has been largely anecdotal and over-relies on stereotypes. While gender-responsive community engagement—taking into account both the gender identities and gender expertise of peacekeepers as well as the gendered needs of and interactions with host communities—may be important, the justifications and mechanisms for pursuing this are, at this juncture, murky. This paper used a literature review, semi-structured interviews, and a survey mechanism to lay out a brief history of ETs and EPs in the UN and outlines benefits, operational challenges, and gendered assumptions which affect operational effectiveness.