Women Peace And Security June E-News 2018

Towards A Feminist Political Economy For Sustainable Development And Peace

By Nela Porobic Isakovic, WILPF’s Women Organising for Change Project Coordinator

(Image: Gaelle Marcel)

As the Sustainable Development Goals are up for the review in New York next month, member states would do well to learn from the experience of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

As a country coming out of conflict, BiH is still recovering from the devastating effects of war and a significant number of people continue to suffer from war-related violations and harms. Over 20 years after the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed, these issues have not been adequately addressed. Instead, the exclusion of women and a gender perspective from the peace process, combined with poor economic decision-making and subsequent economic austerity measures, has exacerbated gendered inequalities and supported rising tensions that risk feeding into the old conflict.

As a post-conflict country, BiH still faces many challenges. However, economic restructuring in BiH has been done without reflection to the many new and complex challenges society faces in the wake of the war. For example, the lack of investments in health-care and other public services in the aftermath of war has increased the burden of unpaid care on women. This directly affects growing gender inequalities and inhibits women’s greater participation in public spaces, from entering the labour force to participating in decision-making.

Despite penny pinching on social safety nets, Bosnia has spared no expense when it comes to funding projects that help their European Union bid. Since 2008, BiH has invested 1,69 billion EUR into the construction of a highway that connects the Croatian coast with Budapest through the extension of the Trans-European Transport Network.

I am not an economist, but I still imagine that this fortune could and should have been used differently!

Bosnians should ask ourselves whether our priorities should be highways, amidst other more acute investments needed to ensure that 1) the needs and problems faced by the direct civilian victims of war are met, and 2) access to and delivery of economic and social rights to all the citizens of BiH are ensured. Healthcare, right to decently paid jobs, social assistance, education, housing and so forth should trump investments into a highway, if we are serious about securing development and sustainable peace.

When it comes to infrastructural investments, BiH should recognise that priority should not be placed on highways but rather the reconstruction and expansion of health facilities and services and other roads that help them access those facilities. Decent accessible healthcare is an important socio-economic right for any society, but is particularly important for a society recovering from war.

Member States must recognise that the ways in which we use money for the public sector and public funds makes a difference on overcoming gender inequalities or preventing conflict relapses in a society.

The economic policies and investments we choose to roll out to strengthen sustainable development in post-conflict societies cannot be separated from the lived and highly gendered experiences of war, and from the new, and often more complex and overlapping needs that emerge as a result of that conflict.

Policies and post-conflict interventions should build social, political and economic platforms for justice and recovery, based on local priorities and principles of gender equality, solidarity, anti-militarisation and human rights.

It is only then we can hope to truly transform the underlying roots of the conflict and start building a sustainable peace.