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The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) requires that women’s experiences, needs, and perspectives are incorporated into the political, legal, and social decisions in order to achieve transitional justice. In a post-conflict society, peace, and security should be understood in a wider context of justice encompassing accountability process and mechanisms, reparations for victims and upholding the principle of equality in all spheres of lives. Thus, the objective of the UNSCR 1325 is to increase women’s participation in decision-making in the peace process to address the wider context of women’s situation in post-conflict society and committing to protect women’s socioeconomic rights. It is obvious that women’s mere presence in decision-making process is insufficient in restoring stability in post-conflict society. Women’s participation will only be meaningful if they are empowered to be active rather than passive participants. Hence, it is argued that women’s leadership could only be built, if they are given adequate representation in decision-making process and institutions. Women’s participation in decision-making and women’s economic empowerment has a symbiotic impact on each other. When women are not stable economically and unable to freely make social choices and take responsibilities, they will not have the courage to compete in an election. Thus, this brief study argues that the economic marginalization (overt and covert discrimination) exposes women to multiple discrimination in post-conflict society in Sri Lanka. Hence, countries like Sri Lanka need to address the existing gap in this sphere of women empowerment and leadership. It concludes that the realization of women’s rights to equality in post-conflict Sri Lanka may be a slow process, but the Sri Lankan experiences provide a good case study on how to face the different challenges in post-conflict context.

The gendered consequences of war are often not fully realized, as women tend to carry the heavier burdens in post-conflict situations, yet at the same time can be left out of the formal peace process. Women can be part of the peace process informally through economic empowerment and sustainability. As most post-conflict situations are occurring in the developing world, one of the major issues in the peace process is the notion of a rescue narrative. Organizations from the developed world approach peacebuilding as a project that often disenfranchises and disempowers the people they are trying to help. Therefore, women must be empowered to contribute to their economic situations rather than becoming dependent on the help of outsiders. This amplifies the role of the follower by giving her the tools to be part of the solution and become self-sustainable.

This chapter argues for the role of social enterprise in building sustainable peace by giving women agency and power in their communities. It will look at these phenomena through the lens of a non-governmental organization, 31 Bits, that offers a valuable case study in the post-conflict Northern Uganda town of Gulu where they employ 100 plus women in a five-year program that equips them to become fully self-sustainable through the creation of jewelry handmade from recycled paper. Their holistic approach moves beyond the nonprofit model of charity and survival for giving their beneficiaries the chance to thrive. In this way, it is not relief or rescue work but rather informal sustainable peace development. When women are economically empowered, their communities are closer to reaching gender equality and achieving positive peace.

There are a large number of destinations in which post-conflict tourism (PCT) might be a relevant development option. This chapter considers four destinations which have opted to use the PCT brand as part of their strategies to attract tourists. These destinations – Cambodia, Nicaragua, Rwanda and Bougainville (within the country of Papua New Guinea) – are on four different continents, had conflicts which ended in the last decade of the twentieth century and represent tourism industries at different stages of development. They were also chosen because they are at low or medium levels of development and have relatively small populations of less than 20 million people. The chapter considers the different ways in which PCT is or might be used not only to provide economic opportunities for local residents, but also as a means towards reconciliation, healing and recovery after conflicts which have resulted in many casualties and divided the people against each other. Each of the case study destinations have attempted to turn a negative aspect of their histories into an opportunity for development, with differing levels of success.

Post-conflict economies are characterized by high, and often growing, levels of debt. At the same time, peace is particularly fragile in the aftermath of a conflict. This chapter studies how debt affects the risk of war in the 10 years that follow the end of a previous conflict. After controlling for per-capita income and other economic, political, and geographical factors, external debt is found to increase the risk of war. Conversely, the effect of domestic debt is negligible. The policy implication for the international community is clear: debt relief helps stabilize peace in war-torn economies.

Purpose – This research aims to explore Qanun Aceh post-conflict enacted in the legislation of Government of Aceh through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and enhancement policy of Wali Nanggroe associated with educational development.

Approach Methodology – The review of the literature links to the Qanun Aceh exploring the Wali Nanggroe institution through normative theory. A qualitative method was used to find a strategic policy of the Legislation Government of Aceh related to documents used in data analysis.

Findings – The study found the existence of the Wali Nanggroe institution brought several opportunities and challenges of unifying Aceh people post-conflict. The discussion of the Wali Nanggroe Institution has brought new dynamics in the policy and educational development in post-conflict Aceh. The Government of Aceh and the Parliament did not take the policy for educational building in order for the society to have an understanding of the Wali Nanggroe institutional position as stated in the Law of Government Aceh (LoGA).

Research Limitations – The examination of these dynamics and prospect of the Wali Nanggroe institution is linked to the policy on educational development for the Aceh people and implementation of the LoGA post-conflict of the Aceh Government and the Government of Indonesian Republic.

Practical Implications – The solution offered is to improve the educational system to give a political understanding of the Aceh people.

Existing literature on the post-war agency of women combatants focuses on macro-level political and economic processes as measures of their agency in the post-war society. I try to present a more complicated and complete picture of women ex-combatants' experiences of post-war agency by including socio-cognitive process to understand their post-war experiences. After categorising the extant research into four categories – post-war as regression; structural forces shaping post-war regression; situated agency of women ex-combatants; and micro-politics of post-war – I introduce the concept of ‘strategic silence’. This concept indicates the capacity of female ex-combatants to consciously stay silent and to highlight the collective gains and empowerment for women while sacrificing the self. Secondly, I introduce the concept of ‘epistemic resistance’ which captures their ability to resist dominant narratives of social transformation by the Maoists in Nepal. I focus specifically on narratives around marriage during the insurgency. I conducted 39 extensive interviews during my fieldwork in Nepal (2017–2018) involving female ex-combatants, their leaders (male and female) and experts. This chapter makes an important intervention in feminist security studies and feminist international relations through a specific focus on gender in post-war reconstruction and peacebuilding.

Representations of female perpetrators of political violence contribute to society's thinking about women, gender, violence and agency. Analysis of this discourse is vital to understand its influence on society's knowledge of women and violence. The study investigates how gendered narratives are used to frame female ex-combatants in Nationalist and Unionist newspapers in the post-conflict society of Northern Ireland. The media is a central agent in the construction of knowledge; and this is significant for women who have perpetrated crimes or (political) violence. The existing research found that violent women are narrated and interpreted through gendered discursive frameworks to dismiss or make sense of their violence. However, in the Northern Irish case, although the women are constructed within gendered frames, this does not deny their agency in past political violence.

The chapter seeks to examine how local women’s groups in Burundi and Liberia have responded to the opportunities offered by UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and how transnational understandings of gender security have affected the way the locals advocate for gender policies at home.

Through discussion of data collected during extended fieldwork, the chapter illustrates the internal negotiation process between the international and the local elements of the transnational campaign for the implementation of Resolution 1325. The chapter first looks at the processes of identity creation and learning that enable local activists to adapt to transnational understandings of gender security. Second, it looks at the (re)production and adaptation of those understandings in local campaigns for gender security in post-conflict¹ Burundi and Liberia.

The chapter demonstrates how a very particular discourse on ‘gender security’ is used and reproduced through power relations between local and transnational activists, thereby enabling certain practices and policies to become natural and the best possible option.

This implies that while transnational advocacy networks help grassroots social movements to be heard at international fora, these networks also impose certain discourses and practices, contributing to a depoliticisation of the grassroots activity.

Understanding how transnational advocacy networks negotiate and transform local women’s rights discourses is all the more important since these transnational networks have been considered as moral authorities in the global political arena.

Peacebuilding is often premised on international intervention in post-conflict situations. This epilogue extends the concept to address preventative peacebuilding in pre-conflict societies. Social movement organizations that spring from democratically oriented movements can either reproduce dominant and dominating leadership styles, or they can cultivate democratizing leadership (Klein, 2016) by developing democratic practices, structures, and cultures within and between organizations. Democratizing leadership promotes leadership as a verb more than a noun: as the operation of power in relationship between people, rather than as positional power grounded in an authority figure. In democratizing leadership, democratic decision-making is preceded by the development of individual and collective voice and followed by responsible collective action. In addition to these processes, democratic values are also essential, including: freedom (differentiated from autonomy), justice (procedural, social, and restorative justice), and equity (more than equality), which underlie structural processes and inform practices. When social movement organizations find creative tension between ad hoc leadership and the tendency toward bureaucratization, they can cultivate a democratic culture through organizational practices and structures for preventative peacebuilding work. Leadership in such organizations recognizes and utilizes creative conflict to sustain agonistic pluralism and promote conflictual consensus (Mouffe, 2013). This epilogue provides examples of democratizing leadership from social movement organizations, including: In the Heart of the Beast Theater, Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, Neighborhood Leadership Program, and the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs, that illustrate how democratizing leadership can be developed in pre-conflict preventative peacebuilding organizations by integrating democratic practices, structures, and cultures.