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The United States helps address this gap through the Global Peace Operations Initiative, or GPOI, which was founded in 2004. This U.S.-funded security assistance program works with 53 partner governments to help stabilize countries in conflict, and helps support United Nations and regional peace operations.
One of GPOI's key tenets is to engage, consult and protect women in all aspects of peace operations. “The inclusion of a greater number of women in peace operations, to include peacekeeping, makes those operations more effective by ensuring that the needs and talents of local women are seen and considered. Women peacekeepers can also do things like address the needs of female ex-combatants during the process of demobilization and reintegration into civilian life, interview survivors of gender-based violence, and make the peacekeeping force more approachable to the entire population. Lastly, women peacekeepers can and do serve as role models to empower local women,” writes Dana Houk of the State Department's Office of Global Programs and Initiatives, a sub-division of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
