Investing in activism and harnessing expertise - Gendered and postcolonial constructs of civil society in the Women, Peace and Security agenda

Abstract: In recent years, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda have paid a higher degree of attention to the gaps in implementation and lack of financing that have characterized the agenda since the adoption of UNSCR 1325 in 2000. This development has also included more attention given to implementation through civil society organizations, and the establishment of a new financing instrument – Global Acceleration Instrument for Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action (GAI).This thesis critically analyzes the discourse of the WPS agenda concerning the financing of civil society organizations through this instrument. From a perspective of postcolonial feminism and feminist political economy it is argued that even though the GAI fund represents a well-deserved acknowledgement of the work of women’s organizations in the field of peace and security, and a shift in WPS discourse in its greater focus on women’s agency, the fund also reproduces a discourse of gendered and postcolonial constructs. These constructs are connected to processes of de-politicization of women’s civil society organizations, securitization of gender equality issues, an ignorance of structural root-causes to violence and conflict, and localization of conflict and women’s civil society organizations. The reproduction of these constructions within the framework of the WPS agenda could be argued to have limiting effects on both women’s organization, and sustainable financing for peace.