Gender-Responsive SSR: What Does it Mean and What are the Challenges for its Implementation?

The integration of a gender perspective is widely recognised as one of the key principles of security sector reform (SSR). However, despite this, gender perspectives are often not strategically addressed or, worse yet, not considered at all during the practical implementation of SSR. The failure to ensure gender-responsive SSR prevents the reform process from contributing to an effective, accountable and sustainable security sector.

Building on the FBA’s approach to SSR, this brief aims to outline why the integration of a gender perspective is one of the key principles of the reform process. It also aims to raise some of the common misunderstandings related to gender and how they prevent gender-responsive SSR.