The U.S. Africa Command has built a new tool that works to measure the command’s progress in increasing the participation of women in security cooperation and peacekeeping operations.The WPS Security Force Assistance assessment tool is designed to inform AFRICOM on how African partner nations integrate women into its capacity-building initiatives, the Defense Department said Friday.
Congress passed the Women, Peace and Security Act of 2017 in October, directing AFRICOM to find new ways to incorporate women, peace and security into security cooperation activities.
AFRICOM worked to develop training opportunities for women from African militaries as well as co-host workshops and seminars on gender integration, women’s role in peacekeeping missions and ways to mitigate gender-based violence.
Cori Fleser, AFRICOM’s gender adviser and creator of the SFA assessment tool, said that she developed the platform to help her provide more tailored recommendations on the implementation of WPS integration plans.
She added that the analytic tool is intended to give the command a better understanding of how gender affects the security sector, as well as identify opportunities for collaboration with partner nations.
The SFA tool uses open source data from international organizations such as the United Nations, World Bank and World Health Organization as well as indicators from global indices, including the Fragile States Index and Women, Peace and Security Index.
