Progressing Women, Peace and Security in Defence
The Defence Team recognizes that understanding power dynamics and gender inequalities is critical for informing gender-responsive mandates, strategies, and tactics at the institutional, policy, and operational levels.
In 2023, the Defence Team published the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces Implementation Plan for Canada’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security – 2023 to 2029 as a guide for operationalizing the Government of Canada’s commitments to the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda at two distinct but interrelated levels, the institution and within operations.
Institution
The Defence Team is changing internal systems, structures, and culture to support equitable practices, inclusion, career progression and success, and to reduce harmful behaviours. Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) is used to understand the different interests, needs, and barriers for different people based on the intersection of their identity factors – race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, etc. Additional important changes include initiatives that address all forms of misconduct, including conduct deficiencies of a sexual nature, harassment of a sexual nature, and crimes of a sexual nature.
The Defence Team is committed to creating an inclusive, equitable, and safe work environment for all. When workforce conditions promote personal dignity and enhance personal health and well-being, and when Defence Team members are evaluated and promoted based on non-biased assessments of their merit, members’ contributions to operational effectiveness are optimized, enabling all those within the Defence Team to bring themselves and their skills to the workplace.
Operations
Military planning and activities are enhanced by incorporating WPS knowledge and principles into international engagements, incorporating intersectional approaches to intelligence and targeting, and understanding prevention and response to increasing use of sexual violence in conflict and unlawful recruitment of children as emerging and lethal tactics of war. Intersectional analysis of human factors in conflict and crisis, known as the human domain, can:
- Assist military commanders with developing operation orders, contingency plans, and reporting mechanisms that provide a more holistic approach to understanding an adversary and their exploitable weaknesses.
- Reveal how biases can be exploited by adversaries to pose threats within multi-domain (for example: land, air, cyber, etc.) operations.
- Identify the needs of at-risk populations during conflict.
- Develop strategies and responses that can prevent abuses from happening in the first place.
Two groups of military or civilian personnel provide expertise and guidance to CAF commanders at the operational and strategic levels to help integrate intersectional analysis of the human domain during military planning, execution, and evaluation.
- Gender Advisors (GENADs) advise commands on how different people within the operating environment (i.e. military members, adversaries, civilians in conflict zones) are affected by military activities or can in turn impact military actions. A broader understanding of human power dynamics and social relationships within an operational environment allows for military planners to understand human factors that could improve or impede operational objectives, thereby enabling better decision making and assess risk more effectively.
- GENADs in the CAF who are deployed on joint operations, or NATO/UN peacekeeping missions, hold the primary role of ensuring that issues relevant to the WPS agenda and intersectional perspectives are integrated across all operational levels, to progress operational and strategic military goals.
- GENAD positions are supported by Gender Focal Points (GFPs), who are appointed within branches at a headquarters (HQ) level and/or within units on a tactical level, to integrate intersectional perspectives within the plans, tasks and evaluations of the branches and units. GFPs are typically sourced from within the branches and units where they serve, receiving additional training that enables them to assist HQ staff and unit members in planning and operations.
Current Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) military operations are listed Current Operations list.