Guidelines on Integrating Gender Approaches in Training Specialists for the Security and Defence Sector of Ukraine

Author(s)/editor(s)

Mariia Chekhovska, Natalia Chuprinova, Svitlana Hanaba, Olha Honcharenko, Oleh Hushchyn, Nataliia Kaminska, Hanna Karakurkchi, Larysa Kompantseva, Liudmyla Krymets, Oksana Krytenko, Kateryna Levchenko, Valentyna Miroshnichenko, Ruslan Musevych, O.Orel.

The Women, Peace and Security Agenda emphasizes the need to involve women in security and defence, and highlights the important role of women in conflict prevention and resolution, peace negotiations and post-conflict recovery.

In 2020, Ukraine adopted its second National Action Plan on implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in the context of an ongoing conflict. An important component in fulfilling the commitments is building knowledge about gender equality and gender mainstreaming in security and defence, and addressing the stereotypes that exist about women’s and men’s roles, including also in the security and defence sector. Efficiently ensuring gender equality in the sector and eliminating gender discrimination depend on understanding the problem, continuous gender education, knowledge of international standards, a legal framework, good practices of gender equality, building gender culture and gender sensitivity.

The Guidelines highlight fundamental theory and instructional techniques for integrating gender approaches into the educational process of higher education institutions in Ukraine’s security and defence sector. It covers the essence, structure, content, forms and methods of gender component implementation in various daily activities; it offers a unified approach to gender equality and provides useful practical recommendations for teachers and a wide range of experts in the security and defence sector of Ukraine. Application of the Guidelines is an important step for further development of a unified methodological approach in higher education institutions of the security and defence sector to integrate gender into the learning process.

The Guidelines were prepared by a team of Ukrainian authors at the initiative and under the leadership of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, with technical support provided by UN Women and financial support from the Government of Sweden.