Stockholm, Sweden (Dec 19, 2014) – Women, Peace, and Security is a topic of great importance to the international security community and consequently the Partnership for Peace Consortium (PfPC) launched a new program to teach gender studies to military institutions.

The United Nations Security Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security formalized in 2000 what the international community has known for some time: namely, that conflict resolution and other matters of international security depend on the role of gender. The Partnership for Peace Consortium’s Security Sector Reform (SSR) Working Group pursues activities to further gender studies in the international security community. In a culmination of the past four years’ worth of efforts, the SSR group convened in Stockholm from 17-19 December and began producing an instructional book designed to be integrated at defense institutions in order to teach gender studies to military institutions.

Brigadier General Bengt Axelsson, Deputy Vice Chancellor of the Swedish National Defense College, and also Sweden's representative on the PfPC's Senior Advisory Council (SAC), kicked off the group’s activities. General Axelsson noted that the book represents a significant step forward in harmonizing NATO and Euro-Atlantic partners' policies on integrating gender in the military.

According to Dr. Raphael Perl, Executive Director of the PfPC, “The international community’s collective efforts to integrate gender studies and security represent an important step forward in promoting global peace and security.”

The SSR group, working closely with partners such as the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces and the Swedish National Defense College, expects to publish the gender studies book by December 2015.