Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 4 – January-February 2012

From Remedial Action to Women’s Empowerment: Implications of the US National Action Plan for PMSCs

Implications of the US National Action Plan for Private Military and Security Companies

On December 19th 2011 the National Action Plan on Women Peace and Security (NAP) was announced as the blueprint for integrating women across all post conflict nation building activities. In 32 other countries, the NAP has come to be the central vehicle for empowering women across the stability and defense communities.  The United States Government’s  final product reflects a relatively forward leaning approach to contractors, including commitments to improving the collection of sex-disaggregated data, efforts to inform program design with context-relevant gender analysis, and ensuring  women‘s equal participation in training, education and program activities.

Within the plan’s development, one core challenge was outlining the role that Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) would play, and what mandates should govern their relationships with the USG when it comes to gender. The problematic aspect, for the civil society organizations informing the effort in particular, was a lack of good information. Discussions about gender equality within the realm of PMSCs has so far been tokenistic, anecdotal, and dominated by a handful of negative stereotypes. Whereas we have a range of new information and tools for gender mainstreaming United Nations Peacekeeping Forces or the US Military, we know very little about gender mainstreaming throughout PMSCs. This outlook has severely limited research and movement forward on policy options for improvement, and therefore demands change. Quality research and analysis, identification of gaps and best practices and practical policy options and novel partnerships for implementation are now necessary.