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Kosovo: Missed Opportunities, Lessons for the Future

Author(s): Lesley Abdela
Source: Development in Practice, Vol. 13, No. 2/3 (May, 2003), pp. 208-216
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Oxfam GB
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Developmentin Practice, Volume13, Numbers2 & 3, May 2003 *NW TaylorFranPsGblshing

Kosovo: missed opportunities, lessons

for the future

Lesley Abdela

The growth in the number of 'small wars' has led to a proliferation of post-conflict
reconstructionefforts.Theexperiencein the Balkanswithpost-war reconstructioncan provide
a significant contributionto further learning, as much learning still needs to be donefrom the
messy,poorly conceived, and chaotic mannerin which the outside world stepped in and tried
to help in the 1990s. Among the most importantlessons that transpiredis the need to include
womenfully in peace building.In the case of Kosovo,as elsewhere,the internationaleffortwas
dominatedby men, with little insight into or concern about addressing gender inequalities.
This indifferencein turnpervaded assistance programmes,withparticularlydamagingeffects
for local women.

The dogs of small war

The speed with which international affairs switched from the relative tranquillity that
characterisedthe Cold Warto incipient anarchyand untrammelledaggressionhas taken most
of us by surprise,leaving us much to reflect upon in termsof dashedhopes for sustainableand
lasting peace. Pandorahas reopenedher box and let loose the dogs of small war.
One importantconsequence of all these changes has been an explosion of bush wars (with
more to come) and a loss of belief in the art of diplomacy.Some of these wars can be loosely
identified as tectonic plate wars, breakingout after decades of rigid rule, as in the Balkans;
others are more straightforwardpower-plays, whether in the form of outright attacks on
divided units as in Chechnya and East Timor,or of rivalry over Kashmir.
A mushroomingof small wars aheadimplies a mushroomingof post-conflictreconstruction
efforts. The experience in the Balkans with post-warreconstructioncan provide a significant
contributionto furtherlearning,as much learningstill needs to be done from the messy, poorly
conceived, and chaotic mannerin which the outside world steppedin and tried to help in the
1990s. Among the most importantlessons that transpiredis the need to include women fully
in peace building.But as shown in ALNAP's latest annualreport,there are serious difficulties
in achieving this.'

Becoming an actor in Kosovo's drama

Getting there
I first 'parachuted'into Kosovo with the Organisationfor Securityand Co-operationin Europe
(OSCE) in the immediateaftermathof the NATOcampaign.Being an actorin the dramais an

208 ISSN 0961-4524 print/ISSN1364-9213 online 020208-09 en2003 Ofam GB

DOI: 10.1080/0961452032000073189 CarfiaxPublishing

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 Missed opportunities,lessons for thefuture

eye-openingexperience,andone thatis impossibleto gain at a distance.One of the lessons that

became most obvious to me as a result of my involvement is that women must stop being
addedon as an optionalextra,bolted on as an afterthoughtor half-dayexcursionto a West End
play, and must insteadbe an integralpartof the peace-buildingprocess. Organisationssuch as
InternationalAlert have launchedcampaignslike 'Women Building Peace: From the Village
Council to the Negotiating Table' which explicitly set out to place women 'at the heart of
reconstructionand reconciliation'.
My first-handexperiencein conflict and post-conflict situationsstartedin 1993 when I was
a journalistin a Bosnian war zone, in the Bihac enclave. I conductedover 300 interviewswith
Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats.Then, from August to December 1999, I was seconded by the
British Foreign and CommonwealthOffice to be Deputy Directorfor Democratisationfor the
OSCE in Kosovo. This was in the dramaticimmediate aftermathof the NATO campaign
againstMilosevic's forces. At the invitationof the BritishCouncil in Freetown,I followed this
with a ten-dayvisit to SierraLeone in November2000 to carryout an initial needs assessment
on gender and governancein the uncertainand still-troubledaftermathof the diamond-and-
drug-fuelledconflict.
For three years I had discussed with NATO/SHAPE(the Supreme HeadquartersAllied
Powers Europe-NATO's training school for military and civilian personnel), the British
Ministry of Defence, and representatives of NGOs how to improve coordination and
cooperationbetween formaland informalsectors in conflict and post-conflictsituations-and
how to include women as well as men in decision making and planning.
I arrivedin Pristinaas partof the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (knownby its acronym
UNMIK) at the end of August 1999, 14 weeks afterthe NATObombinghad ended. From my
office on the seventh floor of the OSCE Mission headquarters,a formerbank, I could see the
ruinsof the main police station,shatteredby a NATOprecisionbomb, thoughPristinawas not
as badly damagedas otherplaces. People sat out at caf6 tables in the warm sunshine.Among
the indigenousKosovarAlbanianpopulationtherewas a strongsense of optimism.People had
reopenedshops and cafes and were rebuildingtheir homes with remarkablespeed (when they
could get the materialsto do so). To my surprise,there did not even appearto be problemsof
law and order.I felt safer walking aroundPristinain the evening thanwalking aroundLondon.
There were plenty of local women walking aroundshops and cafes in the evenings.

A squandered honeymoon
By the time I left Kosovo in December 1999, however, UNMIK had squandered its
honeymoon period, producing few results and acting in a cumbersome, clumsy, and
bureaucraticmanner.The UN was responsiblefor runningthe municipalgovernments,while
the OSCE was supposed to be trainingKosovar administrativestaff.
By mid-October,it had become clear that the internationalcommunity was fast losing
credibility.Tales of intimidationand shoot-outsbetween rival criminalgangs had become part
of everyday life. The crime rate increased dramaticallyand women were regularly getting
kidnapped(an estimated five a week from Pristina).I no longer saw women out after dark
because by then they were too afraid. I heard reports from reliable sources that lack of
sufficient and properlytrainedinternationalpolice meant that, near the Albanianborder,girls
as young as 16 were being snatchedfrom their beds for forced prostitution.

'Women came last-after everything else came women'

Despite an absoluteimmensityof warningssignallingthatthe overwhelminglymen-dominated
internationalmissions were getting things wrong, the women of Bosnia and Kosovo remained

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LesleyAbdela

excluded from any concrete involvement in negotiations, post-conflict reconstruction

planning, and policy making, and even from the democratisationprocess itself.
At the OSCE conference on gender held in Vienna in June 1999, MartinaVandenbergof
HumanRights Watchwarnedthe OSCE in no uncertainterms of the urgentneed to reform:
The OSCEregion is one of conflict. Theseconflictsand the complexreconstructionissues
they leave behind have a profound impact on women's lives. Many women in these
conflicts have lost male membersand find themselvesheads of householdsfor the first
time. Otherwomenhavefaced rape and tortureat the hands of state or non-stateparties
to the conflict.
Discrimination against women during the reconstructionperiod is legion. Our
experience with the OSCE indicates that field personnel urgently need a tremendous
amountof trainingon humanrights-with special emphasison women'shumanrights ...
Women'sabsence from leadershippositions within the OSCE as well as the failure to
include women's human rights in the OSCE is reflected in the lack of reporting on
women's human rights flowing in from field missions in Bosnia, Croatia, Tajikistan,
FYROM/Macedonia,and elsewhere (Vandenberg1999).

As one Bosnian woman leader interviewed by Human Rights Watch said bitterly, 'Women
came last-after everythingelse came women'.

Mistakes repeated in Kosovo: the male-as-leader culture

Where were the women?

One year afterthis reportwas written,the same mistakeswere to be repeatedin Kosovo. With
one exception, all seniorposts in the OSCE and the UN missions in Kosovo were held by men,
most of whom had got there throughtraditionalmale hierarchies.The most senior individuals
had been government ministers, while many had a backgroundin military or diplomatic
service. None had any substantialgender awarenesstrainingor experience.
During my time in the field with the OSCE in Kosovo, I realised that this exclusion of
women from the senior decision-makingstructuresof the OSCE and UN, combined with the
very damaginggender ignorance/blindnessof the senior men posted to these missions, were
key contributing factors to the chaotic and costly mess that ensued in the civilian
reconstructionprocess. The men in the UN and the OSCE missions were deeply imbuedin an
old-fashioned, male-as-leaderculture that was clearly ignorant of the female majority and
therefore particularly ill-suited to face the imposing challenges ahead. At roundtable
discussionsI attended,top UNMIK and OSCE officials regularlyand earnestlydiscussed what
percentageof Serbs and otherethnic groupsand 'minorities'shouldbe representedon judicial,
political, and public bodies, without ever mentioningthe inclusion of women.
I pointed out this discrepancyrepeatedly,stressing that hundredsof documents had been
drafted emphasising the importance of incorporatingwomen fully in peace-building and
reconstructionprocesses. For example, an early paragraphin the unanimousSecurityCouncil
adoptionof Resolution 1325 (2000) states:

Reaffirmingthe importantrole of womenin thepreventionand resolutionof conflicts and

in peace-building, and stressing the importance of their equal participation and full
involvementin all effortsfor the maintenanceand promotionof peace and security,and
the need to increase their role in decision-makingwith regardto conflictpreventionand
resolution ... urges MemberStates to ensure increased representationof women at all

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 Missed opportunities,lessons for thefuture

decision-makinglevels in national, regional, and internationalinstitutionsand mecha-

nismsfor the prevention,management,and resolutionof conflict.

In addition,I also pointed out that the UN Global Platformfor Action recommendedthat at
least one thirdof decision-makingpositions at all levels of politics and public life be women.
And in September 1999, ElisabethRasmusson,one of the few women in the upperranks as
Deputy Head of OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Madeleine Rees, a lawyer
with the OSCE in Sarajevo, organised a meeting in Sarajevo for the explicit purpose of
discussing lessons learnedabout the exclusion of women in the OSCE Bosnia Mission.

Too complicated to include women?

I returnedto Pristinato remindthe men at the OSCE Mission that the post-mortemof Bosnia
Herzegovinahad shown that it had been a serious errornot to include women properlyin the
first elections and that at the second elections therehad been a specific stipulationthat at least
one thirdof candidatesshould be women. And yet, in a spectralecho of what must have been
received wisdom in Bosnia, the men in the OSCE in Kosovo justified excluding women by
saying thatthe situationwas 'complicatedenoughwithouthaving to thinkaboutrepresentation
of women as well', and that women in leadershipposts would be 'alien to local cultureand
tradition'.It was precisely the savage, musket-drivenconsequence of this 'local culture and
tradition'we were all there to help put right.
In a furtherdisplay of theirbiased awarenessof reality,these 'liberal'male Europeansadded
that in any case 'no women in Kosovo are interestedin participationin politics or public life'.
In believing this, these men showed an unacceptableignoranceof the fact that-as in other
former communist countries-many Kosovan women of all ethnic backgroundswere well
educated and were qualified professionalsin all fields, including medicine, engineering,and
teaching.For instance,LuletaPula, the AlbanianKosovan leaderof a social democraticparty,
told me that in 1990 she headed the 60,000 women-strongwing of the LDK (Democratic
League of Kosovo) Party.She pointedout thatethnicAlbanianKosovan women had been very
active for ten years or more in runningthe alternativesociety underthe Serbs.Kosovanwomen
also told me that they had been involved in running 'underground'municipalities and
judiciaries. Kosovan women had risked-and even lost-their lives working as language
assistants and advisers to the OSCE VerificationMission prior to the NATO bombing.
The complete exclusion of women from the democratisationprocess was highlightedby the
fact that Dr BernardKouchner,the then special representativeof the UN Secretary-Generalin
Kosovo, appointedthe 17-personKosovan TransitionalGoverningCouncil with not a single
woman on it.

'Never as pushed aside as we feel now'

Frustratedand puzzled by the fact that the men at the top of the internationalcommunity
continuedto ignore the voices of Kosovan women, I sent out a note asking if any women's
NGO representativeswould be interested in attending an exploratory meeting to discuss
women's political empowerment.Around 30 women from 16 local women's NGOs and
internationalorganisationscame along. This included representativesfrom rural women's
networks, and from Serb, Roma, and ethnic Albaniancommunities.
We held a series of meetings with the purposeof workingtogetherto develop a programme
of activities to increase women's participationin politics and public life. Each meeting was
attendedby an increasing numberof women from NGOs across the province and from the

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LesleyAbdela

Albanian, Serb, and Roma communities,as well as from the wings of political parties-the
LDK and the UCK (Kosovo LiberationArmy) and from internationalorganisations.
Some 60-80 women from 22 KosovanNGOs acrossthe provinceattendedthe meetings, and
they told me thatthese meetingswere the firsttime thatKosovanwomen's NGOs had been able
to come togetherto work on anything.Igbal Rugova, leaderof MotratQiriazi, an umbrellaof
fourruralwomen's networkssaid: 'The internationalcommunityhas marginalisedus women in
a way we never had been before.We have never felt as pushedaside as we feel now.'
Promptedby the frustrationsof the Kosovan women, a UN colleague and I sent a fax to UN
Secretary-GeneralKofi Annanto ask him to intervene.As a directconsequence,threeKosovan
women NGO leaders were invited to meet with Annan and Kouchner,who agreed as a result
that UNMIK would in future hold regular consultations with women NGO leaders. Three
women were subsequentlyinvited to join the new joint interim governing group, and six
women were appointedto the new interim transitionalcouncil.

The diamond ceiling

An unexpectedconsequencefrom the actions outlined above affected me directly:I was fired
from the Mission for breakingprotocol by sending a fax requestingKofi Annan to intervene.
I had been 'uncollegiate'.The fax was considereda 'majorbreachof protocol' by the men in
senior posts. It had embarrassedthe male hierarchsof the OSCE in Kosovo. As a result, the
Dutch Head of Mission told me a few weeks later to leave Kosovo. Ironically,when I heard
the news, I was away for ten days in Russia workingon a priorcontracttrainingfuturewomen
leaders. I was told throughe-mail not to return.
I have published two books on women in the workplace, Breaking through the Glass
Ceilings andDo It!- Walkthe Talk.Yet I had not realisedhow precariousa place a sole woman
higher up in the hierarchyis in if the men aroundand/orslightly below her find her presence
disturbing.Ruefully, I'm thinking of calling this less examined phenomenon 'the Diamond
Ceiling': at thatheight in the 'company'you can buy diamondsif you wish, but you had better
buy them fast.

Tradingplaces
One root cause of the exclusion of women from senior posts is the way in which international
organisationsfunction and the way they recruit and promote their personnel. Before each
mission, horse-tradingtakes place between nations for prestige posts. Foreign Offices play
games harkingback to Richelieu or Rome. One Italian diplomattold me that he had, over a
period of years, happily backed Denmark,The Netherlands,France, and other countries in
their bids to put their men in place, with an eye on calling in the favour down the line.
Thus, seniorposts in peace missions are subjectnot to finding the best and most appropriate
person with the characterand outlook for the job, but ratherby Buggins' turn and trading
places. And, once in place, hierarchyis all. No matterhow ill-suited for the job the person
mandatedby his countrymay be, he (and, as I have pointedout, it is overwhelmingly'he') can
and does veto any ideas from lower down without any fear of mutiny in the ranks. Mission
'junkies' want to junket off to Aceh, if it blows further,or Madagascarif the civil war
continues, or ... The wretchedand immoralconcept of collegiality-a conspiracyof omertd
(the code of silence practisedby the Mafia) regardingyour colleagues and especially your
bosses-clicks seamlessly into place.
Of course the mere inclusion of more women in the post-conflict reconstructionprocesses
is not enough to ensure a smoother ride towards a rebuilt polity and economy. The very

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 Missedopportunities,
lessonsfor thefuture

structuresthat somehow arrivelike a flat-packfrom Mission control to the field have yet to
manage to fit the place and circumstance.
Problemsresultingfrom poor or inadequatepre-planningand inappropriateseniorpersonnel
are furthercompoundedby the fact that a most vital ingredient,communication,is hard to
come by when it is needed the most. Let me provide an example. One day, in Septemberor
October 1999, I saw a distraughtKosovan woman outside the UN police headquartersin
Pristina.Three UN police officers were telling her to go away, mocking her. I went up and
asked what was happening.One of the police officers said:
This is a crazy woman-ma'am. She has come to us three days running.She says her
family is being nasty to her.Wekeep telling her that'snothingto do with us and she should
go away. She'sjust a crazy woman.
I asked them if it had occurredto them that she may well have returneddespite them telling
her to go away because she was desperatefor someone to help her.At the very least they could
advise her which agency in Pristinacould offer assistanceand possibly counselling.They said
they had no idea where to send her or how to find out.
I asked an experiencedUN police peacekeeperin Kosovo to tell me why UN missions often
go so wrong. His response mirroredthe frustrationsof other competentprofessionalsangered
by the organisationalmish-mash:
No clear sense of purpose; muddledand contradictorygoals and objectives crafted by
amateurs, implemented by incompetents, and defended by bureaucrats whose sole
purpose in life is to move up thefood chain. Make no waves, admit no mistakes,accept
no responsibility,and demandno accountability.Appearanceis everything;never mind
the substance. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
In late 2000 I received an e-mail from a relativelynew Mission memberin Kosovo. She wrote:
Therehave been a lot of mistakesand problems in the Kosovo deployment(mostlyfrom
the civilian side)-coordination and communicationsbetween agencies and organisa-
tions being one of the most outstanding.
This lack of communication,combinedwith genderignorance/blindnesswithin the Mission in
Kosovo, had a wide variety of negative consequences for women.

Sex trafficking
Along with drugs, sex traffickinghas become a huge, criminal trade whereby women are
forced into prostitutionwhenever clients with cash can be found. This involves the transport
of women and girls across state lines, and, like with the drugs tradeor the illegal cash flows
from Russia to banks in the Mediterraneanregion, it helps to maintainfuzzy bordersin south-
east Europe to facilitate this movement of humanbeings.
The following is taken from a reportin The Timesdated 5 February2000:
The women, some as young as 16, are held captive by gangsters, often Albanian, and
forced to sell sexualfavours to troopsand businessmenin the nightclubsopening around
Kosovo. In the past Kosovo was not a destinationfor the east Europeansex trade, which
began with the collapse of communismin 1991, but the presence of a 45,000 strongarmy
has proved an irresistibledraw.
In one bar just outside Pristina, near the HQ of Russian forces, 12 young women
were rescued in early February. Their duties included dispensing sexual favours to

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LesleyAbdela

Russian and American K-For troops and other foreign clients. The girls, who were
rescued by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), were said to be
terrified.
Barely four monthsafterthe internationalforces arrived,the Kosovanpopulationbegan to feel
impeded ratherthan liberated.A woman NGO leader summed up the mood:
'You"internationals"are polluting our air and clogging up our roads with all your white
vehicles,' she said. 'Yourefuseto employus as professionals in your organisations.There
are thousandsof you. Youall makepromises but we neither see actionfrom you nor do
you provide us withfunds to get on with things ourselves.'

How could matters be improved?Some suggestions

What would be the best structuresand vehicles in futurepost-conflict situationsto fulfil tasks
of strengtheningdemocracy,human rights, free media, good governance, and society based
upon law and order and the mainstreamingof gender in all activities?
Even though missions write excellent evaluation reports about lessons learned, this
knowledge is either not passed on to the next mission, or simply not incorporated.The
exclusion of women by senior males in the Kosovo Mission happeneddespite repeatedstrong
warningsand reportsabout attitudesto women on previous OSCE missions.
There are three ways in which matterscan be improved:

* Post-conflictelections shouldbe craftedto ensurethe inclusion of women. There shouldbe,

for instance, a format mandatingthat at least 40 per cent of all candidatesbe women. In
elections with list systems there could be alternatemen and women's names on the lists of
candidates.These mechanisms are both democraticand inclusionary.
* It is crucialto ensurethat women have fair access to resources.It is pointless to 'empower'
women and pass protocols, directives, resolutions, or statute laws without providing the
ancillaryfunding requiredto make the changes operationaland effective.
* Coordination,cooperation,and understandingbetween formal and informalsectors need to
be dramaticallyimproved. The military,NGOs, internationalinstitutions,politicians, and
local populationsare all key stakeholdersin producinga satisfactoryoutcome. The lack of
interface and coordinationamong them must be addressedurgently.2

Other recurrentproblems that are not directly addressedin this paper but that nonetheless
requireattentioninclude the following:

* The military and the large intemational organisations such as the UN tend to be
contemptuousof the hundredsof little ants-600 or more NGOs were active in Kosovo
even in the early post-conflict days.
* The small NGOs are disdainful and increasingly critical of the large, over-funded, and
endlessly ineffectual bureaucracies.
* NGOs are often suspicious of the military.
* In Kosovo, the NATO military with their well-practised,well-thought-outcommand and
control structureswere confused and annoyedby the ad hoc ('chaotic') work cultureof the
hundredsof NGOs and by the cumbersomestructuresof the UN and the OSCE.

The military,which have extensive trainingresources,may be able to assist NGOs and civilian
consultancieswith pre-Missiontrainingin team building,planningskills, logistics know-how,

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 Missed opportunities,lessons for thefuture

and simulationexercises. At the same time, NGOs may be able to help train the military in
developing a greaterunderstandingof communicationbetween militaryand civilian personnel
in orderto better interactwith and assist the civilian population,including women and men,
differentethnic groups, and so on.

Addendumand concluding remarks

The following article appearedin Business Weekonline on 23 May 2002:
First Lady Laura Bush made headlines when she took to the airwaves of Radio Free
Europe on May 21 to urge the women of Afghanistan to play a major role in the
reconstructionof their batterednation.Mrs. Bush isn'talone. She was echoing a growing
school of thoughtamongforeign policymakersthat the key to fostering democratisation
and economic development,especially in impoverishedMuslimand Africannations, may
lie in the empowermentof women.
In state after state plagued by civil war or ethnic cleansing, thousandsof men have
been killed. That has left women as the majority of the population. And it sometimes
means there'sno one else to shoulder the leadership role in both politics and economic
developmentin what are often conservative,patriarchal societies. ... The statistics can
be stunning.In Bosnia, 67 per cent of the population is female, and thefigure is 70 per
cent in parts of Kosovo. Womenand childrenaccountfor 80 per cent of refugees.And the
men who don't get killed often live abroad and send money home.
The good news is that several ... NGOs-some run by women-have beenfocusing
for years on helping womenwith such issues as political involvementand microeconomic
projects.And the experiencehas paid off 'NGOsrun by womenare moresuccessful than
NGOs run by men', says Joseph Presel, a former Americanambassadorto Uzbekistan.
'Therehas beenfairly rapid and measurablesuccess. It's not readilyapparentbut is very
much the case.'
But despite this potentialfor leadership,women in Kosovo were for the most part left out of
the post-conflict reconstructionprocess. Among other things, women lacked equal access
to:

* administrativepower;
. participationin all levels of the democratisationprocesses;
. planning, implementation,and monitoringof policies;
* funding and resources.

As a result, women did not enjoy the same respect as male survivorsof conflict did-men
wounded in conflict are perceived as heroes, while women raped in conflict are seen as
shamefuland are expelled by theircommunities.In addition,the needs of (thousandsof young)
widows have been overlooked, and women continue to lack equal access to retrainingand
employmentopportunities.
Neither men nor women should be allowed to be deployed on an internationalmission
as civilians, police officers, or military personnel unless they can prove as an entry
qualificationthat they have attendeda minimumof three days' trainingin gender sensitivity
and gender mainstreaming-and this must include Heads of Missions and Heads of
Departments.Clear evidence that an individual lacks gender awareness should be grounds
for refusing promotion or redeployment until this has been remedied or the person
removed.

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LesleyAbdela

Acknowledgement
The full reporton which this paperis based, Kosovo-Opportunities Missed, LessonsLearned,
can be requestedfrom <tim.symonds@shevolution.com> free of charge.

Notes
1 The Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian
Assistance (ALNAP) is an inter-agency forum working to improve learning and
accountabilityin the internationalhumanitariansystem.
ALNAP (2002) Section 4.3.4 on GenderEqualityfound the following:
* While most agencies now have gender-equalitypolicies, they are clearly not being
translatedinto practice. Gender analysis tools and trainingappearto have been largely
ineffective in the face of highly resistantbureaucracies.The exception is UNHCR (June
2001), where structuralbarriersto gender equality such as culturalnorms and practices
are analysed in depth.
* For the most part agency reports,while themselves critical of a lack of gender analysis,
do not adequatelyanalyse how interventionsmight be improved.Again, the focus is on
what happened,and not on why it happened.
a The ActionAid summary report (2000) comments that gender issues tend to be de-
prioritised in emergencies and tend to be confused with initiatives targeted toward
women. Targeting women may result in immediate impact but does not necessarily
addressstructuraland rightsissues, which is one importantobjective of a gender-equality
approach.
a In the reportsthat do consider gender equality,poor practice and failure to mainstream
gender adequately appear to be the norm, even in interventionsthat were successful
overall.
2 Better forward planning needs to go into any civilian responses in the future, and I
recommendSchoenhaus(2002) on this extraordinarilyimportantmatter.

References
ALNAP (2002) HumanitarianAction: ImprovingPerformancethroughImprovedLearning,
ALNAP Annual Report, London:ALNAP.
Schoenhaus, R. H. (2002) Training for Peace and Humanitarian Relief Operations:
AdvancingBest Practice, PeaceworksReports43, Washington,DC: United States Institutefor
Peace. Available free of charge from <usip_request@usip.org>.
Vandenberg, M. (1999) Keynote address at the OSCE SupplementaryHuman Dimension
Meeting on GenderIssues, Vienna, 14-15 June (Full text available at www.osce.org).

The author
Lesley Abdelais a seniorpartnerat EyecatcherAssociates/Shevolutionandis ChiefExecutiveof
Project Parity.With more than 20 years' experience in the fields of gender and democratic
development,she has travelledthe world as an expertadviserto governmentsand international
organisations,NGOs, and the privatesector.In addition,Abdela is an award-winningjoumalist
andbroadcaster,andis a previouswinnerof the UK Womanof Europeawardforhercontribution
to the empowermentof women in CentralandEasternEurope.Contactdetails:ParkFarmOast,
BurwashEtchingham,East Sussex TN19 7DR, UK. < lesley.abdela@shevolution.com >.

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