Peacebuilding practitioners with caring responsibilities: Navigating COVID-19 challenges and opportunities to advance an ethics of care in peacebuilding

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the engagement of employees with unpaid caring responsibilities in peacebuilding, and the subsequent impact on peacebuilding work. It finds that, while the pandemic compounded the difficulties facing these employees, it also presented opportunities to change work practices to better respond to their needs and, thus, mitigate some of the individual, organisational and sectoral harms that otherwise arise. This paper concludes by arguing for an ethics of care be advanced in peacebuilding, which acknowledges the interconnectedness between people, recognises the importance of care in societies, and is more attentive and responsive to the needs of others. It further argues that the care lens should be directed inwards by organisations engaged in peacebuilding, to attend to the needs and the well-being of employees, recognising the adverse impact that not doing so can have on efforts to build peace.

KEYWORDS:

• Peacebuilding
• caring responsibilities
• gender
• COVID-19
• flexible work arrangements
• ethics of care

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted peacebuilding, feeding conflict dynamics, and diverting resources and attention of the international community away from threats to security beyond the pandemic.¹ The pandemic also impacted the way formal peacebuilding work is done, notably shifting it towards remote, online modalities, because of the repatriation of international staff, travel restrictions, and lockdowns. Peacebuilding practitioners were also impacted as a result these strains and shifts, often resulting in a heavier workload, combined with significantly increased unpaid care work, especially for those with primary and sole caring responsibilities.

This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the engagement of employees with caring responsibilities in peacebuilding, the resultant individual, organisational and sectoral harms, and the potential opportunities for change in work practices and, thus, outcomes. It finds that while the pandemic increased unpaid care work and so compounded the difficulties in managing both care and paid work responsibilities, remote and other flexible work arrangements helped some employees better manage these responsibilities. This carries both risks and opportunities for peacebuilding work, which this paper will explore. The paper also briefly considers the extent to which flexible work arrangements have persisted in the sector since the height of the pandemic.

The paper argues that continuing flexible work arrangements beyond the pandemic can help prevent the departure of employees with primary and sole caring responsibilities from the sector, which has been commonplace because of practical, organisational, cultural and normative barriers.² This disproportionately affects women with children, given childcare constitutes the bulk of unpaid care work and given the highly gendered nature of care work.³

The paper further argues that by supporting employees with caring responsibilities, including through the adoption and roll-out of flexible work arrangements, not only do individual employees benefit, but so do peacebuilding organisations and their ostensible beneficiaries. This is in large part because the departure of employees with primary or sole caring responsibilities adversely impacts organisational diversity; constrains the epistemic community to a narrow, male-dominated demographic; curtails the skillsets and knowledges available to organisations; inhibits the extent to which peacebuilding is gender inclusive and responsive; and compromises the credibility of peacebuilding organisations that aim to advance gender equality. It is also because the measures enacted to better support employees with caring responsibilities – including moving away from heavy workloads, regular travel and presenteeism – are also more broadly beneficial to the well-being of all employees and helps to avoid some of the risks and safeguarding scandals associated with stress and burnout.⁴

There are, however, risks involved in sustaining and expanding flexible work arrangements. These include the potential male-domination of physical work spaces,⁵ and the paradoxical further resource depletion of employees with caring responsibilities who are better able to take on more work (both care work and waged labour).⁶ This paper will explore these risks as well as the opportunities presented by new modes of working adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In so doing, this paper addresses a topic that has avoided much scholarly attention and organisational commitment, despite the extent of the marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities from the sector and the harms to peacebuilding that result. There is awareness, in scholarship and practice, of the critical role that women play in peacebuilding,⁷ and the ways in which the gendered nature of care work entrenches gender equalities.⁸ However, there has been little connection made between the marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities in peacebuilding organisations and the extent to which those organisations are effective in developing and implementing inclusive, responsive and effective peacebuilding programmes.⁹ This paper intends to help bridge this gap in the literature and contribute to theoretical and conceptual understandings around gender, care and peacebuilding.

The main body of the paper begins by analysing the marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities and the harmful effects this can have on peacebuilding practices and outcomes, before examining the impact of the pandemic on these processes of marginalisation and harm, including the potential transformational opportunities arising from changed work practices and an increased awareness around care and care work. It concludes by arguing that peacebuilding organisations must recognise and respond to the needs of employees with caring responsibilities, not least because of the adverse impact not doing so can have on efforts to build peace. In so doing, this paper argues for an ethics of care to be advanced in and through peacebuilding, which acknowledges the interconnectedness between people, recognises the importance of care in societies, and is more cognisant of and responsive to the needs of others.

Methodology

A multimethod approach is adopted, utilising both qualitative and quantitative data. The paper draws from a global survey with peacebuilding practitioners on managing caring and paid work responsibilities in the context of COVID-19 (Survey #1). The survey was conducted during the height of the pandemic in August-September 2020¹⁰ with 105 practitioners working in 51 countries in local and international NGOs, intergovernmental organisations, security institutions and governments. Three-quarters of respondents were international staff members, and approximately four-fifths were women. Survey data is supplemented with a data from a smaller, supplementary survey conducted in October-November 2020 to further examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on peacebuilding work (Survey #2).¹¹ Surveys were developed to elicit both quantitative and qualitative data to capture broad trends and lived experiences, respectively. The surveys contained a total of 61 questions, of which 16 were open-ended and constructed in a way that encouraged detailed responses. Both surveys were administered through Qualtrics, and circulated through personal networks and social media platforms and groups, notably Aid Mamas and Holding the Blue - Women in the UN System. A snowballing (non-probability) sampling technique was utilised, targeting current peacebuilding practitioners with caring responsibilities.

Survey data is complemented with a small number (n = 10) of in-depth, semi-structured interviews (n = 10, 2020-2021) and sustained ‘conversations’ (n = 15, 2018-2024),¹² with current and former peacebuilding practitioners who have caring responsibilities working with international NGOs and intergovernmental organisations in Myanmar, Colombia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Somalia, Argentina, Cambodia, Philippines, Australia, United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America (USA).¹³ Access was gained through personal networks and selection was made on the basis of known interest in the topic of peacebuilding practitioners with caring responsibilities. Sustained ‘conversations’ constituted regular informal discussions around the topic with practitioners engaged in this topic. While access to and trust of participants was facilitated through the author’s personal networks and experiential knowledge, it is recognised that the author’s positionality (as a white, Western, English-speaking scholar-practitioner) and experience (having been a peacebuilding practitioner with caring responsibilities) will have curtailed different voices of peacebuilders, whilst enabling others – also often unheard due to normative assumptions about peace and care work, as will be discussed. It is recognised that further research is required to examine the heterogeneity of experiences of peacebuilders with caring responsibilities and, specifically, how these experiences intersect with race, ethnicity, socio-economic status and other identity markers beyond gender.

Statistical data is drawn from two secondary sources. Firstly, personnel statistics of international organisations engaged in peacebuilding are analysed to assess the extent to which those with caring responsibilities, principally women with children, are marginalised, using the UN as a case study. Secondly, data is drawn from sectoral surveys with peacebuilding and international development practitioners on the impact of COVID-19 on their work to corroborate findings.¹⁴

A narratological approach is adopted for the gathering and analysis of qualitative data.¹⁵ Through this approach, research participants are positioned as producers of knowledge, rather than sources of data, and their explanations of the impact of COVID-19 on their work and their ability to manage both caring and work responsibilities are privileged in the text of this paper. This is a political decision: to, first, hear the voices of those who may have been silenced because they have either left the sector or fear the consequences of voicing concerns about managing both care and professional responsibilities, especially amidst increasing job precarity; and, second, to present a counter-narrative to the dominant discourse on how peacebuilding work must be done (long hours, frequent travel, free from constraints) and by whom (those free from primary or sole caring responsibilities – archetypally, the unencumbered male). This counter-narrative also helps expose the gender power relations that operate within and through both peacebuilding and care work, which sustain and disguise inequalities and harm, and compromise efforts to build peace. It also enables an interrogation of the political relationship between the private and the public, which is often obscured in and through peacebuilding work: how care work is overlooked, and how this results in harms that extend beyond the individual and their private sphere to the organisation, the wider sector and the peacebuilding work being undertaken. This approach also resonates with the blurring of the distinction between public and private spaces brought on by the pandemic’s lockdowns, remote working and home-schooling.

Theorising the links between peace work, care work and the impact of COVID-19

There is little scholarship on the marginalisation of those with caring responsibilities from peacebuilding and the wider international development sector; the individual, organisational and sectoral harms that can arise as a result; nor the way in which COVID-19 may have impacted this marginalisation and resultant harms.¹⁶ To bridge this gap, this paper draws from three bodies of feminist International Relations (IR) scholarship on: gender inclusive and responsive peacebuilding,¹⁷ to explore that impact of marginalising carers from the sector; peacebuilding and care praxis,¹⁸ to examine the opportunities that are present when care is taken seriously; and depletion through social reproduction,¹⁹ to further explore the harms that result from overlooking and undervaluing care work. Feminist IR scholarship is apposite given the gendered dynamics of peace and care work and, what will be shown to be, the gendered drivers and impacts of the marginalisation of carers. To further interrogate how this marginalisation and resultant harms have been impacted by the pandemic, this paper draws from scholarship on the gendered impacts of COVID-19, especially as regards care work.²⁰

This paper will show that women are most likely to be marginalised from peacebuilding given the gendered nature of both peace and care work. It will also show that the marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities is a key factor in why efforts to advance gender equality within the sector are unsuccessful, building on research which has demonstrated that women’s engagement in the workforce is shaped by caring responsibilities in ways that men’s is not.²¹ Feminist IR scholarship on gender inclusive and responsive peacebuilding has underscored the importance of the meaningful and comprehensive engagement of women to successful peacebuilding, and yet their continued underrepresentation and marginalisation, especially in senior positions.²² This paper contributes to this body of scholarship by drawing attention to the way in which the gendered nature of care work and lack of organisational support for employees with caring responsibilities is a critical factor in the continued underrepresentation of women in the sector and the failure to advance more inclusive, responsive and effective peacebuilding. Drawing from this scholarship, this paper will argue that their marginalisation compromises the diversity of peacebuilders, which potentially limits the extent to which peacebuilding programmes are responsive to a diversity of needs, and, thus, effective. This is, in part, because peacebuilding practitioners often engage with those who share similar views or backgrounds, and so a narrow demographic of peacebuilding practitioners are less likely to know and respond to the specific needs of others or be able to enjoy their trust and confidence.²³ A lack of diversity can also limit the knowledge, skills, and capacity available to peacebuilding programmes.²⁴ Moreover, the marginalisation of women from peacebuilding sustains (and reflects) gender inequalities and gender power imbalances, which can also feed dynamics of conflict and violence.²⁵

The harms resulting from the marginalisation of employees with care responsibilities are further analysed through the lens of scholarship on depletion through social reproduction, which has drawn attention to the gendered harms resulting from the lack of support, and value, given to care work.²⁶ These harms include a curtailment of access to economic opportunities and engagement in political life, including informal peacebuilding,²⁷ which also extend beyond the individual to the detriment of their family and wider community. This paper contributes to this scholarship by demonstrating how the extension of these harms are mirrored in the formal peacebuilding sector, extending as they do from individual peacebuilding practitioners with caring responsibilities, to the organisations they work for and the work these organisations do.

A small but growing body of scholarship on care praxis and peacebuilding has drawn attention to the opportunities that are present when care is taken seriously. It has explored how care work can give rise to different ways of thinking and being,²⁸ which derives from the ‘existential fact of human vulnerability and relatedness, and the capacity to recognise and respond to the needs of others’.²⁹ These different ways of thinking and being grounded in care – what Ruddick (1990) refers to as ‘maternal thinking’ – can be potentially transformative and positively contribute to peacebuilding.³⁰ Related scholarship on the ethics of care has also explored the transformative potential of embedding the principle of care in peacebuilding practice, which would involve recognising people’s interconnectedness and interdependence and valuing the importance of relationships and care practices, especially during and in the aftermath of armed conflict.³¹ This paper draws from this scholarship to argue that these opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of peacebuilding are lost when organisations engaged in peacebuilding do not respond to the needs of their employees with caring responsibilities.

Finally, this paper draws from feminist scholarship on the impact of COVID-19 on workplaces and work practices to examine the gendered impacts of COVID-19 on peacebuilding practice and participation.³² This research has demonstrated that women’s already disproportionate burden of care work substantially increased due to the pandemic, particularly because of the closure of schools and childcare facilities; that women generally took on more additional care work than men; and that this further entrenched gender inequalities and increased women’s fragility in the paid economy, as evidenced by data that shows that women suffered greater job losses than men due to COVID-19 and the gender poverty gap is widening.³³ The pandemic has, however, increased awareness of the importance of care and, as a result, it carries the potential to disrupt – as well as further entrench – gender norms,³⁴ with the possibility for systematic change in the way that care work is valued and accounted for in social and economic policies.³⁵ While there has been an abundance of research on the gendered impacts of COVID-19 since the declaration of a pandemic in March 2020, including on care work,³⁶ and the potential opportunities that the pandemic has presented, there has been little application of this research to the peacebuilding sector. This paper intends to contribute to filling this gap and further exploring the ways in which an ethics of care in peacebuilding can be advanced to improve peacebuilding practice and outcomes.

Lack of care for carers in peacebuilding and resultant harms

The marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities

The marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities from formal peacebuilding is indicated by personnel statistics of organisations operating in the sector. For instance, in the UN commons system, which includes the UN as well as affiliated programmes and specialised agencies, data shows that the proportion of female staff (as compared with men) has tended to decline from the mid-30s age group (the age at which many women in this sector choose to have children).³⁷ UN personnel statistics show that women around this age are more likely to resign than their male counterparts: in 2021, 76% of professional staff at the P2 level who resigned were women (with an average age of 33), and 54% of professional staff at the P3 level who resigned were women (with an average age of 40).³⁸ UN personnel statistics also show that in the UN commons system while almost half (45%) of international professional staff members have children, very few (only 8%) have more than one child, which raises the question of whether having a family is conducive to working in the UN (Table 1).³⁹ Retention rates among women are also very low, especially compared with their male counterparts (54% compared with 76%), which may also indicate the difficulties of remaining in the UN after having children.⁴⁰ Given the highly gendered nature of care work, statistical data on the representation of women can also be an indicator of barriers to the engagement and advancement of employees with caring responsibilities. For instance, as at December 31, 2023, in the UN Secretariat, 45% of 14,941 international staff are women; in the field this drops to 34% (Table 2).⁴¹ This reflects the additional practical, security and normative barriers to the engagement of employees with caring responsibilities in the field, where offices may be non-family duty stations and gender normative assumptions about care work and peace work prevail, as will be discussed shortly. Gender disparity is especially prevalent in UN peace operations, special political missions, and other political presences, with women constituting just 26% of all staff members (Table 3).⁴²

Table 1. International staff in the UN common system with dependents (as at December 31, 2022) (n = 45,760)⁹⁷.

Total staff	With Primary Dependent	With Secondary Dependent	Number of children
45,760	20,567 (45%)	3,618 (8%)	59,249

Table 2. International staff in the UN Secretariat, by gender: as at December 31, 2023 (n = 14,941)⁹⁵.

	International Staff	International Staff in Field Locations
Women	6,700 (45%)	1,846 (34%)
Men	8,241 (55%)	3,586 (66%)
Total	14,941	5,432

Table 3. Staff in peacekeeping operations, special political missions and other political presences, by gender, as at December 31, 2021: 2021 (n = 14,350)⁹⁶.

	Women	Men	Total
Fixed Term	2,691 (27%)	8,690 (73%)	11,381
Permanent/Continuing	773 (31%)	1,721 (69%)	2,494
Temporary	220 (46%)	255 (54%)	475
Total	3,684 (26%)	10,666 (74%)	14,350

UN personnel statistics are utilised as they are publicly accessible and because the UN is the largest global employer engaged in peacebuilding. However, personnel statistics of other international organisations engaged in peacebuilding paint a similar picture, with research indicating that a ‘lack of basic infrastructure to reconcile professional and private work (work-life balance)’ is partly to blame.⁴³ For instance, across all 11 European Union (EU) civilian Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions, only 24% of all 2,100 staff are women (as at June 2022).⁴⁴ While the number of women in these missions has increased since the EU established the CSDP Compact in November 2018, the proportion of women has not changed significantly (from 22% in 2018), and is particularly pronounced in leadership positions (Head of Mission, Deputy Head of Mission, Chief of Staff, Head of Operations) with women comprising only 17% (3 out of 18) Heads of EU CSDP missions and operations in 2022.⁴⁵ The proportion of women in CSDP military operations has increased since 2019, but by 2022 had only reached 7.7%.⁴⁶ One of the key factors identified by the Measuring Opportunities for Women in Peace Operations (MOWIP) methodology for women’s underrepresentation among uniformed personnel is ‘household constraints’, including care work and gendered assumptions about care work. The MOWIP methodology is part of the framework for the Elsie Initiative, established in 2017 at the UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial, with the aim of moving ‘from slow, incremental progress to transformational change regarding women’s meaningful participation in peace operations’.⁴⁷

Research undertaken for this paper shows that employees with caring responsibilities, specifically primary or sole caring responsibilities, often leave formal peacebuilding organisations or are otherwise marginalised due to practical, organisational, cultural, and normative barriers.⁴⁸ Women who have children are disproportionately affected, given childcare constitutes the bulk of unpaid care work and given the highly gendered nature of care work.⁴⁹ Most research participants agreed, with 92% of survey respondents stating that their caring responsibilities had impacted their work in the sector (Survey #1). Almost all research participants also said that they had substantially changed their career or even left the sector when they assumed caring responsibilities, largely because of the lack of support and other barriers to continued engagement in the sector (Survey #1) Of all 105 respondents in Survey #1, only one said that it is not difficult for people with caring responsibilities to work in the sector, and only one considered that organisations do enough to support employees with caring responsibilities (Table 4).

Table 4. The Impact of Caring Responsibilities on Peacebuilders (Survey #1 n = 105).

Question	Yes (%)	No (%)	Other (%)
Have your caring responsibilities impacted your work in the sector?	92	8	0
Have your caring responsibilities impacted your career progression	80	20	0
Have you changed your career or left the sector due to your caring responsibilities	86	3	11 (‘No, but I have considered it’)
Is it not difficult for people with caring responsibilities to work in the sector?	1	76	23 (‘It depends’)
Do organisations do enough to support employees with caring responsibilities?	1	68	31 (‘It depends’)
If you have left the sector, was is due to your caring responsibilities (n = 11)	9	2	0

Research participants referred to knowing very few women with children, especially young children, in the sector, and particularly highlighted a lack of such women in leadership positions. One interviewee cited expectations that once a woman becomes pregnant, she would leave the sector. For those research participants who changed careers after having children, they then sought employment with less travel, fewer responsibilities, or below their previous wage grade to accommodate their caring responsibilities, which often compounded their marginalisation and increased their economic insecurity. As one Survey #1 respondent noted, ‘I left full time to have a child with the idea of consulting after a mat leave. After my partner left me, things fell apart. Eight years later, I am still seeking a path to return’.

Research participants explained that these decisions to leave the sector or change their careers were, in some cases, driven by a need to find employment in less unstable environments or places with better amenities. The vast majority, however, said that these decisions were necessitated by organisational, work culture and normative factors. Research participants referred to inadequate organisational support, including insufficient maternity and paternity leave, limited access to childcare or crèches, and lack of support (such as the provision of safe spaces for nursing mothers) as constituting significant barriers to their continued engagement. Most research participants said that this lack of organisational support was reflective of a lack of understanding of, or interest in, the challenges facing employees with caring responsibilities or the barriers to engagement and advancement that women especially can face. This lack of understanding or interest was considered to be prevalent among senior leadership who may have ‘benefitted … from patriarchal systems’ and so be less inclined to question or change the status quo, or, less frequently, from women who ‘had to give up their family wishes and expect young professionals to do the same’ (Survey #1 respondents).

Research participants also referred to gender bias and normative assumptions about care work and peacebuilding, especially in the field, as contributing to this lack of understanding or interest and, more broadly, to their marginalisation in the sector. Research participants referred to prevailing attitudes that women with children ‘are less capable and want to work less’ or ‘won’t be a good fit’, or even that ‘mothers are unfit to work in the field’ (Survey #1 respondents). Other research participants referred to assumptions that they were ‘less productive than someone without kids’, did not ‘prioritise the needs of the organisation above their children’, and were ‘less committed’ to their careers because they ‘needed to leave the office on time (to pick up kids from childcare)’ (Survey #1 respondents). Research participants shared that they were ‘scared of being stigmatised as a mother’ and so would keep quiet about the challenges of managing booth paid work and caring responsibilities or would ‘just quietly [leave the organisation]’ (Survey #1 respondents).

Expectations that peacebuilding work, particularly in the field, requires sacrifice, long hours and regular travel also contributes to the departure or broader marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities. Some research participants said this work culture was informed by ‘little understanding of being ‘unavailable’ due to family responsibilities’ and ‘incompatible with supporting a family’ (Survey #1 respondents). Others said these expectations combined with assumptions that peacebuilders do not or should not have sole or primary caring responsibilities, contributed to sustaining a work culture that is not conducive to practices of care, including self-care. While the resultant work culture further repels employees with caring responsibilities, as the following section details, this can result in considerable harm to other employees, as well as those they work with and for.

Harms resulting from the marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities

Analysis of data shows that the marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities from the sector harms not just the employees themselves, but the organisations they work for and the work these organisations do. In the first instance, lack of support for these employees is widely regarded by research participants as ‘one of the major reasons why women are so underrepresented in peacebuilding and peacekeeping’ (Survey #1 respondent), especially in leadership positions. This lack of diversity can negatively impact responsiveness, as peacebuilders often reach out to those of a similar demographic or who share similar views, and so the interests and needs of diverse groups may not find expression in peacebuilding programming.⁵⁰ It can also, as a result, undermine broad-based public confidence in peacebuilding.⁵¹ Limited responsiveness and public confidence can compromise the effectiveness of peacebuilding programmes, as indicated by one research participant:

Rather than the diverse and representative workforce one would hope to have leading an organization, managing teams, designing priorities, and undertaking work, one is left with a bubble of individuals who share similar characteristics (gender, non-caring responsibilities or at least non-caring in the same way, i.e. non-primary caregiver) and this benefits no one – not the people working for them, the policies they implement, or the people they're serving [or] supporting. (Survey #1 respondent)

Lack of gender diversity also reaffirms gender norms and gender power relations that sustain direct, structural, and cultural forms of violence⁵² and which, in turn, feed conflict dynamics.⁵³ Alongside diversity being compromised, a broad range of knowledges, skills, and ways of thinking are curtailed, which adversely impacts work culture and organisational performance, including the ways in which peace is conceived, priorities set, partners engaged, processes developed, and intended outcomes agreed.⁵⁴ When the epistemic community is narrow, understandings about what peace looks like, how it should be built, and whose peace matters are also impacted.⁵⁵ The gendered impacts of a male-dominated sector, less cognisant of and responsive to the specific needs of women, therefore, becomes clear.

Moreover, as scholarship on care praxis and peacebuilding has explored, care work can give rise to different ways of thinking and being that can benefit peacebuilding efforts, including by expanding the capacity of peacebuilding efforts and grounding these efforts in a recognition of the vulnerability and interdependency of people, the importance of care to society, and the need to be attentive and responsive to the needs of others.⁵⁶ Several research participants also considered that their care work had equipped them with additional skills, understanding, and ways of being and thinking, including, in some instances, an ability to empathise and connect with others, and, in turn, positively impact organisational credibility and effectiveness. This opportunity is lost, however, when carers are marginalised or the attributes they can bring are neither acknowledged nor valued by peacebuilding organisations:

There’s this stuff that’s not valued by both management or society; when you cultivate a maternal instinct or when you raise a child … you [build] resilience, a multi-faceted perspective and a degree of empathy that will gift an organization rather than detract from it. (interviewee)

Many of the barriers to the continued engagement or advancement of those with caring responsibilities also compromise effective peacebuilding work: the long hours, frequent travel, poor work-life balance, and lack of recognition of, or support for, care work and well-being feed a culture characterised by stress, burnout and recurrent scandals, harming both the employees and prospective beneficiaries of peacebuilding organisations.⁵⁷ There have been several investigations into recent safeguarding scandals, including sexual exploitation and violence against those working in these organisations and those residing where these organisations operate. These investigations have referred to contributory factors of these scandals as being a work culture that encourages sacrifice, stress and overwork, a lack of organisational support for employee well-being and work-life balance, and, in some instances, a lack of workforce diversity.⁵⁸ Research participants also referred to the marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities as sustaining a work culture that devalues care – including self-care and care for others – and causes harm. One research participant specifically referred to this marginalisation as contributing to a ‘cowboy culture … [of] young, single ‘brave’ men who are able to do the frontline work, but are often risk takers and put their lives and others in danger’ (interviewee). Another referred to a ‘Rambo … mentality’ which sustains and is sustained by the marginalisation of carers and causes harm to others (Survey #1 respondent). Aside from these direct harms, research participants referred to the prevailing work culture as causing ‘stress, anxiety, depression, burnout, frustration’ and, as a result, undermining the effectiveness of peacebuilding due to the effects on staff well-being and performance (Survey #1 respondents).

The COVID-19 pandemic and responses to it significantly and disproportionately increased the care burden placed upon women.⁵⁹ In the peacebuilding sector, this compounded the challenges facing employees with caring responsibilities, as the following section discusses. Given the adverse impact on peacebuilding practices and outcomes that can arise as a result, the pandemic simultaneously highlighted and increased the urgency of addressing barriers to carers engagement and advancement. Following the discussion of the impact of COVID-19 on employees with caring responsibilities in the sector, the final section of this paper draws attention to the transformational opportunities presented by responses to the pandemic.

The impact of COVID-19 on peacebuilding practitioners with caring responsibilities

COVID-19 had a significant and negative impact on peacebuilding, intensifying conflict dynamics while diverting attention and resources away from conflict zones,⁶⁰ contributing to widespread job losses and increased work precarity.⁶¹ Over half of the survey respondents from Survey #2 (56%) said that they knew of someone in the sector who had lost a job because of the pandemic, 16% said that they themselves had lost work or a job due to COVID-19, and almost three-quarters (74%) felt their work was more precarious (Survey #2). Over a third (38%) also said that the organisation they worked in had lost staff or service capacity due to illness from COVID-19, while 71% said that their organisation had lost staff or service capacity as an indirect result of COVID-19 (for instance, due to budget cuts) (Survey #2). This level of job precarity and concern are also reflected in sectoral surveys⁶² and widely reported large-scale job cuts and recruitment freezes.⁶³

The impact COVID-19 had on care work resulted in job precarity – and other harms – being felt particularly keenly among peacebuilding practitioners with caring responsibilities. Over three-quarters of respondents (79%) said that the pandemic impacted their ability to manage both their caring and professional work responsibilities: this included 82% of the 87 women respondents and 50% of the 18 male respondents (Survey #1). For many, this was because of increased care work resulting from the closure of schools and childcare facilities, looking after family members at home who were isolating or shielding, and potentially caring for sick relatives. Respondents referred to the necessity of ‘juggl[ing] work around children’s waking hours’ or needing ‘to juggle both and [feeling] inadequate in both’ (Survey #1 respondents). Several research participants also said that their workloads had increased due to COVID-19, on top of significantly increased caring responsibilities, compounding the difficulties they faced in managing both sets of responsibilities:

My workload has doubled at work, resources have not kept pace, and I’ve been caring for children / acting as their teacher since March. I’m not able to meet the demands of work. (Survey #1 respondent)

Sole carers in particular referred to their ‘paid employment and … children [having] suffered’ as a result (Survey #1 respondent). Research participants also referred to their own physical and mental health suffering, and being ‘totally exhausted’, ‘completely overwhelmed’ or suffering ‘extreme stress’ (Survey #1 respondents):

My mental health has taken a real blow, I'm barely able to keep up with emails let alone work and I feel I am constantly falling short in my care responsibilities. (Survey #1 respondent)

The need to do all forms of work (care and paid employment) simultaneously has resulted in huge amounts of stress, exhaustion and being stretched thin in each area. (Survey #1 respondent)

It is incredibly challenging to work full time from home (with increased stress and work load) while also homeschooling two children (who are also stressed and distressed because of the covid situation so in need of even more attention and care). (Survey #1 respondent)

Some said that the increased difficulties in managing both caring and work responsibilities had forced them to leave their jobs, reduce their consultancy work, or reduce full-time hours, leading to increased concern about economic insecurity and job precarity. As scholarship on depletion through social reproduction⁶⁴ has shown, it is not only the care-giver who suffers the effects of increased economic insecurity, time poverty and stress, but their families and communities too. By extension, the effects of increased stress on peacebuilders with caring responsibilities extends to those they work with and for; and the effects of their departure or marginalisation from the formal peacebuilding sector also extend beyond the individual peacebuilder to sector itself, which can no longer benefit so fully, if at all, from their contribution.

Post-pandemic transformational opportunities: building back better

While COVID-19 compounded the challenges of advancing women’s participation in formal peacebuilding, not least due to juggling significantly increased care and, often, work responsibilities, several opportunities for transformational change have presented themselves. These opportunities include an increased awareness of the value of care work and a broader recognition that working practices can be changed to benefit both employees and their organisations, as will now be discussed.

COVID-19 accelerated a trend towards online, remote, and other flexible work arrangements, and removed some of the perceived barriers that many businesses saw obstructing these modes of working.⁶⁵ Hitherto, it may have been considered impractical to advance flexible work arrangements (in terms of when, where and how to work) in peacebuilding, which is assumed to demand long hours, face-to-face work, and often being on call 24/7. Nonetheless, repatriation of international staff, travel restrictions, social distancing measures and lockdowns meant that for much of 2020 and 2021 formal peacebuilding work was conducted remotely or more flexibly. That sectoral work can be done utilising flexible work arrangements is also evidenced, for instance, by the 2020 Working Families Best Practice ‘Best for Mothers’ Award to the British Royal Air Force for, among other initiatives, supporting flexible work practices.⁶⁶

While most research participants said that COVID-19 had compounded the challenges they faced in managing both unpaid care work and paid work, several reported that the opportunity to work from home, with less travel, made it easier to manage both:

It's actually made things easier – working from home full time has allowed me to manage my caring responsibilities and job better. I can do both without all the lost travel time. (Survey #1 respondent)

Research participants also said that flexible work arrangements more broadly, to include reduced work hours, negotiating work location, and redesigning job roles and objectives,⁶⁷ could help remove the barriers to the engagement of those with caring responsibilities in the sector. In the words of one participant, flexible work arrangements ‘would have saved my career’, while another said it would mean new parents would not have to put ‘careers on hold’ or try to manage new parenthood ‘with the stress of heavy workloads [or] fear [around] job security’ (Survey #1 respondents).

Flexible work arrangements have been shown to have the potential to remove ‘motherhood penalties’ in terms of workforce participation, remuneration and promotion opportunities and, thereby, help reduce gender inequalities.⁶⁸ This is also true for the peacebuilding sector where gender disparity is sustained in large part, this paper argues, because of the gendered nature of care work and lack of organisational support for carers. Moreover, flexible work practices can also enable the retention of skilled staff, who might otherwise be forced to choose between caring and their career. This has cost and organisational effectiveness benefits, and is of critical importance in the sector where the frequent rotation of international staff can limit the extent to which peacebuilding programmes are informed by deep contextual knowledge, built upon trusted relationships with national and local stakeholders and, ultimately, effective.

Critically, by providing the flexibility that enables the retention and advancement of employees with caring responsibilities, as well as others who may be marginalised due to health or mobility issues, flexible work arrangements can enhance diversity within organisations engaged in peacebuilding. As explored earlier, this can positively impact peacebuilding work, given the links between diversity, responsiveness and effectiveness in peacebuilding,⁶⁹ and the broader array of knowledges, skills, and ways of thinking that peacebuilding organisations can, as a result, draw upon.⁷⁰

Research in other fields, principally human resource and management science scholarship, has shown that flexible work arrangements can improve productivity as well as individual and organisational effectiveness, by increasing staff morale and well-being and by decreasing financial costs associated with employee stress and ill-health, unplanned absences, and recruitment due to loss of staff.⁷¹ These cost savings can positively impact peacebuilding work, particularly useful when funding is reduced or redirected, as it was during the height of the pandemic.⁷² Financial costs – as well as environmental harms – can also be reduced as a result of reduced travel and fewer office requirements. In terms of improving staff well-being, this is of critical importance in the peacebuilding sector given the recurrent safeguarding scandals that have been linked to a work culture that encourages sacrifice, stress and long hours.⁷³ More broadly, well-being is of critical importance to good decision making, which is especially critical in peacebuilding contexts, where the consequences of poor decisions can be fatal. As one research participant said: ‘If you are not looking after yourself you are going to make bad decisions’ (interviewee).

Flexible work arrangements introduced to the sector in response to the pandemic may have also inadvertently accelerated localisation, with the repatriation and lockdown of international staff leading to increased reliance upon national staff and local counterparts, a reorientation of external efforts towards building capacity, and some relinquishing of control among international peacebuilders.⁷⁴ If sustained, this could promise more inclusive, responsive, efficient and effective peacebuilding and presents opportunities to shift in power from international to local peacebuilders.

While remote work has emerged as a ‘dominant trend’ in global workplaces,⁷⁵ in the peacebuilding sector many international staff have returned to the field – or to the office – since the height of the pandemic.⁷⁶ Nonetheless, the slight upward trend in remote work in the broader international development sector since 2021 (3.1%) increased between September 2022 and 2023 (to 11.5%), with UN funds, programmes and offices – active in the peacebuilding sector – being among those recruiters that advertised the highest number of remote opportunities.⁷⁷ This upward trend is likely due to a combination of factors, including cost saving; better understanding and utilisation of technological advancements that can help sustain meaningful remote work; and recognising and embracing opportunities to access a broader talent pool and advance a more inclusive and diverse workforce.⁷⁸ Moreover, the acceleration of localisation has been sustained,⁷⁹ alongside investment in digitalisation,⁸⁰ both of which increase the potential for flexible work arrangements in the sector and thereby help attend to unequal power relations between international and local peacebuilders.

Opportunities presented by the pandemic also include the way it has illuminated the hitherto obscured challenges faced by employees with caring responsibilities. Several research participants felt that their organisations or colleagues now had more understanding about these challenges, in part because their care work had been made more visible as the line between work and home blurred:

Having to support remote learning and work has meant working very early and late in the day. I am pleased to see the recognition of caring responsibilities during this time though, as children interrupting zoom calls is seem as funny rather than a lack of professionalism – this has been a positive aspect – we just need to keep this aspect in the future. (Survey #1 respondent)

Several commented that this recognition and subsequent increased support from colleagues had positively impacted their sense of well-being and their productivity.

In these and other respects, the pandemic shed light on the value and gendered nature of care work, leading to discussions about the ways in which to better respond to the gendered inequities of care work and resultant harms. Since the height of the pandemic, organisations engaged in peacebuilding and the broader international development sector have continued to engage in discussions and awareness-raising activities around the issue of care.⁸¹ The pandemic presented opportunities to accelerate this increased recognition of the challenges of managing paid work and care work, and the gendered nature and impacts of these challenges. Hitherto, the feminisation of care has led to its depoliticisation, so that decisions by employees to leave the peacebuilding sector are considered a personal, rather than a political, matter. This has justified limited action on the part of organisations to support employees with caring responsibilities, with ‘parents just quietly leaving and it being taken as the obvious choice to leave’ (Survey #1 respondent).

Fundamentally, the pandemic encouraged serious reflection on traditional work practices and presents an opportunity to do things differently.⁸² Risk management scholarship has highlighted how crises can present opportunities for transformational change, due to shifts in practices and ways of thinking.⁸³ As with armed conflict and other violent crises, health crises, such as the current pandemic, present the opportunity to see practices, processes, structures, and power relations anew, as they become more visible or fluid under the strain of the crisis.⁸⁴

The opportunity to ‘build back better’ may be a political soundbite to distract and suppress disquiet. Nonetheless, tangible opportunities exist to place care at the centre of social, economic and development policies,⁸⁵ invest in the care economy, and redress persistent gender inequalities ‘by valuing, supporting and equally sharing care work’.⁸⁶ Indeed, the pandemic has already shown us that seemingly intractable problems can be addressed: homes can be provided for the homeless, activities which cause environmental harm can be substantially reduced,⁸⁷ and crises can mobilise entire populations and cause the whole international community to ‘pivot’. We have also seen, as discussed above, that alternative modes of peacebuilding work are not only possible, but can better enable the continued engagement of employees with caring responsibilities, better support employees and their well-being, and potentially improve the effectiveness of peacebuilding.

Mitigating risks and consolidating efforts to respond to the needs of carers

By seising the opportunities presented by the pandemic to reflect upon peacebuilding practices and the importance of care, peacebuilding organisations can better respond to the needs of employees with caring responsibilities and so help minimise some of the harms that arise from their departure or marginalisation. Chief among the many steps⁸⁸ that peacebuilding organisations can take to better support these employees is the maintenance of flexible work arrangements outlined above. However, there are risks that flexible work arrangements can inadvertently further marginalise employees with caring responsibilities. For instance, where flexible work arrangements include working remotely or part-time, employees may be removed from some opportunities to advance their careers that can occur as a result of their physical presence in the office, such as on-site training or networking.⁸⁹ Such arrangements can also ‘hide’ the carer from the workplace, which can lead to organisational myopia about the other barriers to engagement and advancement that these employees face. There are already indications that as COVID-19 restrictions ease and workers return to their offices, where flexitime and remote work remains an option in hybrid models, physical office spaces risk becoming increasingly male-dominated.⁹⁰ In peacebuilding, this risks reaffirming gendered assumptions about care work and peacebuilding practice; entrenching the norm that women’s place is in the home. It also risks compromising the visibility and influence of women in peacebuilding, and contributing to decreasing rather than increasing gender equality.

There are other risks associated with flexible and remote working practices, including potentially blurring the divide between work and home life and, thus, contributing to a long-hours work culture. This can undermine employee well-being and further deplete carers’ resources.⁹¹ In peacebuilding this would increase the likelihood of their departure or marginalisation from the sector, as discussed earlier.

Several measures can be taken by peacebuilding organisations to reduce the risks of inadvertently compromising the well-being of carers by supporting flexible work arrangements. These measures include ensuring such arrangements are equally accessible and attractive to all employees regardless of gender, and do not reduce opportunities for career prospects nor increase expectations of overwork. Other measures include training and awareness-raising to address a work culture that rewards presenteeism and long working hours, change expectations around care work and work-life balance, and remove some of the more entrenched cultural barriers to the engagement of women with children. This could help foster and communicate sensitisation to issues of care, including care work, caring for carers, and self-care. These measures can also contribute to a work environment that better safeguards all staff as well as those they are working with and for.⁹² Critically, these measures would address the risks of doing little to respond to the needs of employees with caring responsibilities, which extend beyond the individual peacebuilder to the peacebuilding work being undertaken and the type of peace being built. This is largely due to the departure and marginalisation of these employees as a result of practical, organisational, work culture and normative factors, which result in constraining organisational diversity; curtailing the skillsets, knowledges and ways of thinking and being available to peacebuilding organisations; and sustaining a narrow epistemic community, which determines how peace is conceptualised, how peace should be built, and whose peace matters.

This paper argues for an ethics of care be advanced in peacebuilding work, through which peacebuilding organisations are more cognisant and responsive to the caring responsibilities and care needs of all its employees.⁹³ This would better support employees with caring responsibilities and mitigate some of the resultant risks to peacebuilding. It would also better respond to the needs of all employees by prioritising care (self-care and care for others), and thereby advance a peacebuilding practice that is potentially less harmful, by reducing risks associated with stress, burnout and a poor work-life balance. An ethics of care in peacebuilding work acknowledges interdependence between people and demands engagement that is more attentive and responsive to the needs of others; potentially advancing a peacebuilding practice that is more effective. It can also shift power relations, recognising, for instance, that the peacebuilder should both care for others and be cared for. Adopting a ‘care lens’ can thus potentially lead to transformational change in peacebuilding work, which can lead to more meaningful, equitable and sustainable peace.

Conclusion: directing the care lens inwards

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how critical care is to the functioning of society, to the economy and to sustaining life. This is particularly true in times of crisis, whether during a pandemic or, as this paper has focussed upon, the aftermath of conflict. It has been a reminder that what sustains us is our connection to, and dependence upon, each other,⁹⁴ and that this must be nurtured, valued and supported, and not continue to be so thoroughly neglected, undervalued and ignored. The pandemic shed light on (and, in many respects, fed into) the unequal distribution of, and gendered assumptions about, care work. While the care burden for women, in particular, increased as a result of the pandemic, further threatening women’s engagement in the peacebuilding sector, the pandemic has also offered opportunities – to see things afresh, learn lessons, reflect upon practices shown to be discriminatory and harmful, reconsider what we value especially in terms of unpaid care work, and potentially ‘build back better’ – not just societies as they recover from conflict, but the structures and practices of peacebuilding as they continue to recover from the impact of the pandemic.

This paper has argued that these opportunities can be utilised by organisations engaged in peacebuilding to better respond to the needs of employees with caring responsibilities. It has argued that these organisations must be more responsive to these employees to prevent their departure and broader marginalisation and to avoid the direct harms to peacebuilding that arise as a result. Utilising flexible work arrangements (and attending to the risks that they can increase the likelihood of male-dominated offices and further deplete careers’ resources), building on an increased awareness of care work, and addressing a work culture that encourages sacrifice and stress can remove some of the barriers to the engagement and advancement of carers. These measures can also improve employee well-being, which can reduce the harms sometimes associated with peacebuilding. They can also advance peacebuilding practice that is more cognisant of and responsive to the needs of others and recognises the importance of care – both self-care and care for others. Ultimately, these measures can contribute to more inclusive, responsive and effective peacebuilding. Potentially, they can also lead to transformational change within peacebuilding by shifting power relations as a result of progress towards gender equality, increased momentum towards localisation, and awareness that the peacebuilder has both care needs and caring responsibilities.

This paper has drawn attention to these opportunities that are present when care is taken seriously, and advocates for an ethics of care to be advanced in peacebuilding. This ethics of care acknowledges people’s interconnectedness, interdependence and vulnerability to harm; recognises the value of relationships and care practices; remains attentive and responsive to the needs of others; and prioritises employee well-being and, so, helps better safeguard staff and those they work with and for. While there is an established recognition of the critical importance of women’s engagement in peacebuilding, and a growing awareness of the importance care, there remains little consideration of the connection between the marginalisation of employees with caring responsibilities in peacebuilding organisations, particularly women with children, and the effectiveness of these organisations in building peace. Nor has there been much regard for the way in which COVID-19 may have influenced this marginalisation. This paper responds to these silences by demonstrating the extent of this marginalisation and the harmful effect it can have on peacebuilding, and by identifying opportunities for change.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank all research participants who generously shared their time and reflections, and Dr Elliot Dolan-Evans and Aisha Ismail for their research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik, Shaziya DeYoung, and Uzra Zeya, The Edge of Crisis: COVID-19’s Impact on Peacebuilding & Measures to Stabilize the Field, https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/afp-publications/edge-of-crisis-5-2020, May 2020; Eleanor Gordon, ‘COVID-19 and Conflict: The Impact of Pivoting Attention and Resources away from Peacebuilding’, Disasters (2023), https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/disa.12615; Eleanor Gordon, As the World’s Attention and Money are Absorbed by the COVID Pandemic, Peacebuilding Suffers, https://theconversation.com/as-the-worlds-attention-and-money-are-absorbed-by-the-covid-pandemic-peacebuilding-suffers-156577, March, 11 2021; Eleanor Gordon, and Florence Carrot, Coronavirus in Conflict: The Fight has Hardly Begun, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/coronavirus-conflict-zones-fight-has-hardly-begun, April 08, 2021.

2 Eleanor Gordon, and Briony Jones, ‘Building Success in Development and Peacebuilding by Caring for Carers: A Guide to Research, Policy and Practice to Ensure Effective, Inclusive and Responsive Interventions’, Warwick: University of Warwick Press, https://publishing.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/uwp/catalog/book/10, April 28, 2021; Jones Briony, and Eleanor Gordon, ‘Not a Care in the World: An Exploration of the Personal-Professional-Political Nexus of International Development Practitioners Working in Justice and Security Sector Reform’, International Feminist Journal of Politics (2021), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616742.2021.1894207.

3 Esuna Dugarova, Unpaid Care Work in Times of the COVID-19 Crisis: Gendered Impacts, Emerging Evidence and Promising Policy Responses, https://www.un.org/development/desa/family/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2020/09/Duragova.Paper_.pdf (accessed on January 18, 2024; Susan Himmelweit and Ania Plomien, ‘Feminist Perspectives on Care: Theory, Practice and Policy’ in The SAGE Handbook of Feminist Theory, eds. Mary Evans, Clare Hemmings, Marsha Henry, Hazel Johnstone, Sumi Madhok, Ania Plomien and Sadie Wearing (London: Sage Publications, 2014): 446–64.

4 Jones and Gordon, ‘Not a Care in the World’; Dyan Mazurana and Phoebe Donnelly, STOP the Sexual Assault Against Humanitarian and Development Aid Workers, https://fic.tufts.edu/assets/SAAW-report_5-23.pdf, May 2017.

5 Hannah Hickok, Are men-dominated offices the future of the workplace? https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210503-are-men-dominated-offices-the-future-of-the-workplace, May 07, 2021.

6 Shirin Rai, Catherine Hoskyns and Dania Thomas, ‘Depletion: The Cost of Reproduction’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 1 (2014): 86–105, DOI: 10.1080/14616742.2013.789641; Shirin Rai, Jacqui True and Maria Tanyag, ‘From Depletion to Regeneration: Addressing Structural and Physical Violence in Post-conflict Economies’, Social Politics, 26, no. 4 (2019): 561–85, DOI: 10.1093/sp/jxz034.

7 Sara Davies and Jacqui True, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); Claire Duncanson, Gender and Peacebuilding (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016); Lauran Shepherd, Gender, UN Peacebuilding and the Politics of Space: Locating Legitimacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

8 Dugarova, Unpaid Care Work; Himmelweit and Plomien, ‘Feminist Perspectives on Care’.

9 Eleanor Gordon, ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives: The Causes and Effects of Marginalising Peacebuilding Practitioners with Caring Responsibilities’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 16, no. 4 (2022): 413–33, DOI: 10.1080/17502977.2022.2065161; Gordon and Jones, ‘Building Success in Development and Peacebuilding’; Jones and Gordon, ‘Not a Care in the World’.

10 Survey #1, n = 105 across 51 countries (81%F-18%M-Intersex/Indeterminate/Unspecified/Prefer not to say 1%).

11 Survey #2, n = 32 across 14 countries (50%F-50%M).

12 Jon Swain, and Zachery Spire, ‘The Role of Informal Conversations in Generating Data, and the Ethical and Methodological Issues They Raise’, FQS, 21, no. 1 (2020).

13 7F and 3M in middle-management positions.

14 Baumgardner-Zuzik, DeYoung, and Zeya, The Edge of Crisis; BOND, How is Covid-19 affecting NGOs’ finances and operations? https://www.bond.org.uk/news/2020/04/how-is-covid-19-affecting-ngos-finances-and-operations, April 08, 2020; Chadwick, Vince, and Emma Smith, Exclusive: Coronavirus hits Development Pros’ Livelihoods, https://www.devex.com/news/exclusive-coronavirus-hits-development-pros-livelihoods-97143, May 05, 2020; Conducive Space for Peace (CSP) Act Now on ‘Localisation’: COVID-19 Implications for Funding to Local Peacebuilding, https://www.conducivespace.org/new-report-act-now-on-localisation-covid-19-implications-for-funding-to-local-peacebuilding/, June 26, 2020; Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Make or break: The implications of COVID-19 for crisis financing, https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/pdf/reports/make-or-break--the-implications-of-covid-19-for-crisis-financing/nrc_make_or_break_implications_covid19_crisis_financing_ov.pdf, July 2020.

15 Michael Jackson, The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression, and Intersubjectivity (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002); Paulo Ravecca, and Elizabeth Dauphinee, ‘Narrative and the Possibilities for Scholarship’, International Political Sociology, 12 (2018): 125–38; Annick Wibben, Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach (London: Routledge, 2011).

16 Gordon, ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’; Gordon and Jones, ‘Building Success in Development and Peacebuilding’; Jones and Gordon, ‘Not a Care in the World’; see also Silke Roth, The Paradoxes of Aid Work: Passionate Professionals (London: Taylor and Francis, 2015): 111–27 on ‘doing gender in aidwork’ and the choice often facing women in particular ‘between career and family’.

17 Davies and True, The Oxford Handbook; Duncanson, Gender and Peacebuilding; Shepherd, Gender, UN Peacebuilding.

18 Tiina Vaittinen, Amanda Donahoe, Rahel Kunz, Bára Ómarsdóttir and Sanam Roohi, ‘Care as Everyday Peacebuilding’, Peacebuilding, 7, no. 2 (2019): 194–209, DOI: 10.1080/21647259.2019.1588453; Catia Confortini, and Abigail Ruane, ‘Sara Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking as weaving epistemology for justpeace’, Journal of International Political Theory, 10, no. 1 (2014): 70–93; Fatma Ibnouf, War-Time Care Work and Peacebuilding in Africa (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

19 Rai, Hoskyns and Thomas, ‘Depletion’; Rai, True and Tanyag, ‘From Depletion to Regeneration’.

20 Kate Bahn, Jennifer Cohen and Yana M. Rodgers, ‘A feminist perspective on COVID-19 and the value of care work globally’, Gender, Work & Organization, 27, no. 5 (2020): 695–99; Layla Branicki, ‘COVID-19, ethics of care’, Gender, Work & Organization, 27, no. 5 (2020): 872–83; Claudia Hupkau, and Barbara Petrongolo, Work, Care and Gender During the Covid-19 Crisis: A CEP Covid-19 Analysis, http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cepcovid-19-002.pdf, May 2020.

21 UN Women and ILO, The Impact of Marriage and Children on Labour Market Participation, https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/05/the-impact-of-marriage-and-children-on-labour-market-participation (2020).

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25 Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Cynthia Cockburn, ‘Gender Relations as Causal in Militarization and War: A Feminist Standpoint’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 12, no. 2 (2010): 139–157, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14616741003665169; Carol Cohn, ed., Women and Wars, (Malden: Polity Press, 2013).

26 Rai, Hoskyns and Thomas, ‘Depletion’; Rai, True and Tanyag, ‘From Depletion to Regeneration’.

27 Rai, True and Tanyag, ‘From Depletion to Regeneration’.

28 Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace (New York: Ballantine Books, 1990).

29 Vaittinen and others, ‘Care as Everyday Peacebuilding’, 197.

30 Vaittinen and others, ‘Care as Everyday Peacebuilding’; Confortini and Ruane, ‘Sara Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking’.

31 Sara Held, The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Ibnouf, War-Time Care Work; Fiona Robinson, The Ethics of Care: A Feminist Approach to Human Security (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011). Reina Neufeldt, ‘Doing Good Better: Expanding the Ethics of Peacebuilding’, International Peacekeeping, 21, no. 4 (2014): 427–42, DOI: 10.1080/13533312.2014.946710

32 Bahn and others, ‘A feminist perspective’; Branicki, ‘COVID-19, ethics of care’; Dugarova, ‘Unpaid care work’; Hupkau and Petrongolo, ‘Work, care and gender’; Kate Power, ‘The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the care burden of women and families’, Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 16, no. 1 (2020): 67–73, DOI: 10.1080/15487733.2020.1776561; Clare Wenham, Julia Smith and Rosemary Morgan, ‘COVID-19: the gendered impacts of the outbreak’, The Lancet, 395, no. 10227 (2020): 846–48, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30526-2.

33 ILO and OECD, The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on jobs and incomes in G20 economies, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---cabinet/documents/publication/wcms_756331.pdf (2020); Richard Petts, Daniel Carlson and Joanna Pepin, ‘A gendered pandemic: Childcare, homeschooling, and parents' employment during COVID-19’, Gender, Work & Organisation, 28, no. S2 (2021): 515–34, DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12614; UN, Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women; UN Women, From Insights to Action: Gender Equality in the Wake of COVID-19, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/From%20insights%20to%20action%20-%20Gender%20equality%20in%20the%20wake%20of%20COVID-19.pdf, 2020; UN, Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/policy-brief-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-women-en.pdf, April 09, 2020.

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35 Layla Branicki, ‘COVID-19, ethics of care’, Gender, Work & Organization, 27, no. 5 (2020): 872–83; Power, ‘The COVID-19 pandemic’.

36 Kate Bahn, Jennifer Cohen and Yana M. Rodgers, ‘A feminist perspective on COVID-19 and the value of care work globally’, Gender, Work & Organization, 27, no. 5 (2020): 695–99; Branicki, ‘COVID-19, ethics of care’; Claudia Hupkau, and Barbara Petrongolo, Work, Care and Gender During the Covid-19 Crisis: A CEP Covid-19 Analysis, http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cepcovid-19-002.pdf, May 2020.

37 UN, Personnel by Age and Tenure, UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination. https://unsceb.org/hr-others accessed January 18, 2024.

38 Of note is that more men than women resigned from higher level professional grades (P4-D2) with an average age of late 40s (P4) to 60 (D2). UN, Composition of the Secretariat: Staff Demographics, Report of the Secretary-General, A/77/580. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4000510?ln=en#record-files-collapse-header, December 7, 2022.

39 UN, Personnel Statistics, as of 31 December 2022. https://unsceb.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/CEB_Personnel_Statistics_2023.pdf, July 29, 2023.

40 Impactpool, Are women paying a higher price for UN career?, https://www.impactpool.org/articles/are-women-paying-a-higher-price-for-un-career, June 15, 2017.

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49 Dugarova, ‘Unpaid care work’; Himmelweit and Plomien, ‘Feminist perspectives on care’.

95 UN Secretariat Gender Parity Dashboard

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51 Gordon ‘Security Sector Reform’.

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56 Vaittinen and others, ‘Care as Everyday Peacebuilding’; Ruddick, Maternal Thinking.

57 Jones and Gordon, ‘Not a Care in the World’; Mazurana and Donnelly, STOP.

58 Amnesty International. 2019. “Staff Wellbeing Review.” Washington, D.C.: Amnesty International. https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/ORG6097632019ENGLISH.pdf; Charity Commission for England and Wales. 2020. “Statement of the Results of an Inquiry: The Save the Children Fund (save the Children UK).” https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/870390/The_Save_the_Children_Fund__Save_the_Children_UK__Inquiry_report.pdf; House of Commons. 2019. “Follow Up: Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in the Aid Sector.” London: UK Parliament. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201920/cmselect/cmintdev/111/11102.htm; Oxfam. 2019. “Committing to Change, Protecting People: Toward a More Accountable Oxfam. Final Report of the Independent Commission on Sexual Misconduct, Accountability and Culture.” Oxfam. https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/oxfam_ic_final_report-en.pdf.

59 Hupkau and Petrongolo, ‘Work, care and gender’; Power, ‘The COVID-19 pandemic’; Wenham, Smith and Morgan, ‘COVID-19: the gendered impacts’.

60 Baumgardner-Zuzik, DeYoung and Zeya, The Edge of Crisis; Gordon, ‘COVID-19 and Conflict’; Gordon, As the world’s attention; Gordon and Carrot, Coronavirus in Conflict.

61 Gordon, As the world’s attention; Gordon and Carrot, Coronavirus in Conflict; Annika Tierney, and Ramona Boodoosingh, ‘Challenges to NGOs’ ability to bid for funding due to the repatriation of volunteers: The case of Samoa’, World Development, 136 (2020): 105113–105113, DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105113.

62 Baumgardner-Zuzik, DeYoung and Zeya, The Edge of Crisis; NRC, Make or break; Chadwick and Smith, Exclusive: Coronavirus hits development.

63 William Worley, NGOs lay off, furlough staff as financial crisis bites, https://www.devex.com/news/ngos-lay-off-furlough-staff-as-financial-crisis-bites-96963, April 09, 2020.

64 Rai, Hoskyns and Thomas, ‘Depletion’; Rai, True and Tanyag, ‘From Depletion to Regeneration’.

65 Hupkau and Petrongolo, ‘Work, care and gender’.

66 Beau Jackson, Working Families names companies providing best flexibility for parents and carers, https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/working-families-names-companies-providing-best-flexibility-for-parents-and-carers, May 21, 2020.

67 See also UNICEF, ILO and UN Women, Family-Friendly Policies and Other Good Workplace Practices in the context of COVID-19: Key steps employers can take, https://www.unicef.org/media/66351/file/Family-friendly-policies-covid-19-guidance-2020.pdf, March 27, 2020.

68 Chung and others, ‘Covid-19, Flexible Working’; Sylvia Fuller, and Elizabeth Hirsh, ‘“Family-friendly” jobs and motherhood pay penalties: The impact of flexible work arrangements across the educational spectrum’, Work and Occupations, 46, no. 1 (2019): 3–44, DOI: 10.1177/0730888418771116.

69 Davies and True, The Oxford Handbook; Shepherd, Gender, UN Peacebuilding.

70 Vaittinen and others, ‘Care as Everyday Peacebuilding’.

71 Ioan Lazar, Codruta Osoian and Patricia Ratiu, ‘The Role of Work-Life Balance Practices in Order to Improve Organizational Performance’, European Research Studies Journal, 13, no. 1 (2010): 201–14, DOI: 10.35808/ersj/267; Carers UK, Juggling work and unpaid care: A growing issue, http://www.carersuk.org/images/News_and_campaigns/Juggling_work_and_unpaid_care_report_final_WEB.pdf, January 2019.

72 Gordon, ‘COVID-19 and Conflict’

73 Jones and Gordon, ‘Not a Care in the World’; Mazurana and Donnelly, STOP.

74 Thania Paffenholz, Philip Poppelreuter, and Nicholas Ross, ‘Toward a Third Local Turn: Identifying and Addressing Obstacles to Localization in Peacebuilding’, Negotiation Journal 39, no. 2: 349–75, https://doi.org/10.1111/nejo.12444, November 5, 2023; Jodie Pritchard, Amanda Collier, Müller Mundenga and Susan Bartels, ‘COVID in crisis: The impact of COVID-19 in complex humanitarian emergencies’, Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health, 6, no. S2 (2020): 70–82, https://doi.org/10.3138/jmvfh-6.s2-CO19-0010; NRC, Make or break; PHAP, Make or break: The implications of COVID-19 for crisis financing, https://youtu.be/3dx1vlpZCYI, September 16, 2020; CSP, Act Now on ‘Localisation’

75 Katherine Hann and Kelly Mai, Remote Work Statistics and Trends 2024, Forbes Advisor, https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statistics/, June 12, 2023.

76 Jason McNaboe, What’s driving the remote jobs trend in global development?, DEVEX, https://www.devex.com/news/what-s-driving-the-remote-jobs-trend-in-global-development-106289#, September 28, 2023.

77 McNaboe, ‘What’s driving the remote jobs trend in global development?’. Justin Sablich, How to Manage Yourself When Working Remotely, DEVEX, https://www.devex.com/news/how-to-manage-yourself-when-working-remotely-105347, April 17, 2023.

78 Hann and Mai, ‘Remote Work Statistics and Trends 2024’; McNaboe, ‘What’s driving the remote jobs trend in global development?’.

79 Paffenholz, Poppelreuter and Ross ‘Toward a Third Local Turn’.

80 Andreas T Hirblinger, Martin Wählisch, Kate Keator, Chris McNaboe, Allard Duursma, John Karlsrud, Valerie Sticher, Aly Verjee, Tetiana Kyselova, Chris M A Kwaja, and Suda Perera, ‘Forum: Making Peace with Un-Certainty: Reflections on the Role of Digital Technology in Peace Processes beyond the Data Hype’, International Studies Perspectives, ekad004, https://doi.org/10.1093/isp/ekad004, March 31, 2023; Julia Hofstetter, ‘Digital Technologies, Peacebuilding and Civil Society’, INEF Report No 114, Institute for Development and Peace, Duisburg,. https://www.uni-due.de/imperia/md/images/inef/ir114_hofstetter-final-web-1.pdf, 2021.

81 Monash University, University of Warwick, RMIT, University of Sydney, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Swisspeace, Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF), Saferworld, International Peace Institute (IPI), UN Department of Peace Operations (UNDPO), UN Women, African Union Commission (AUC), Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), Who Cares in Peacebuilding, Concept Note, launched on the inaugural International Day of Care and Support, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RuNkzKu2fSyFJmhZp30TTBuJKQv5ouxl/view, October 29, 2023.

82 PHAP, Make or break.

83 Philip Lipscy, ‘COVID-19 and the Politics of Crisis’, International Organization, 74 (2020): E98–E127, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818320000375.

84 Arundhati Roy, ‘The Pandemic is a Portal’, https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca, April 04, 2020.

85 Chung and others, ‘Covid-19, Flexible Working’; Dugarova, ‘Unpaid care work’.

86 UN Women, COVID-19 and the care economy: Immediate action and structural transformation for a gender-responsive recovery, https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/06/policy-brief-covid-19-and-the-care-economy, 2020.

87 George Monbiot, Post Coronavirus: The World You Want is in Your Hands, https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2020/11/june/post-coronavirus-the-world-you-want-is-in-your-hands-george-monbiot, June 11, 2020.

88 Gordon and Jones, ‘Building Success in Development and Peacebuilding’.

89 Bloom and others, ‘Does working from home work?’.

90 Hickok, Are men-dominated offices the future of the workplace? However, research conducted by Forbes Advisor has shown that in the US workforce, proportionately more men than women work remotely: Hann and Mai, ‘Remote Work Statistics and Trends 2024’.

91 Chung and others, ‘Covid-19, Flexible Working’; Rai, Hoskyns and Thomas, ‘Depletion’; Rai, True and Tanyag, ‘From Depletion to Regeneration’; Sablich How to Manage Yourself.

92 For further recommendations, see UNICEF, ILO and UN Women, Family-Friendly Policies; Carers UK, Juggling work and unpaid care; CIPD, Megatrends: Flexible working, https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/megatrends-report-flexible-working-1_tcm18-52769.pdf, January 2019; Gordon and Jones, ‘Building Success in Development and Peacebuilding’.

93 Vaittinen and others, ‘Care as Everyday Peacebuilding’; Robinson, The Ethics of Care. Neufeldt, ‘Doing Good Better’.

94 Simon Springer, ‘Caring geographies: The COVID-19 interregnum and a return to mutual aid’, Dialogues in Human Geography, 10, no. 2 (2020): 112–15, DOI: 10.1177/2043820620931277; Care Collective, The Care Manifesto (London: Verso, 2020).