The Elsie Initiative Fund has announced support for a two-year pilot project with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) aimed at improving conditions for uniformed women peacekeepers in remote areas. Assessments conducted between 2022 and 2024 revealed that inadequate accommodations, water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities in company and temporary operating bases, as well as during long patrols, disproportionately impacted women peacekeepers and limited their effectiveness. As of June 2025, women are deployed to only 12 of UNMISS’s 25 locations, with representation at five percent for contingent troops and nine percent for UN Police (UNPOL).

To address these challenges, the pilot project will deploy ten relocatable ablution facilities to remote bases and distribute over 1,000 personal sanitation kits, including portable toilets and related devices. These improvements aim to enhance safety, dignity, and operational effectiveness for women peacekeepers, enabling them to participate more fully in mission-critical tasks and engage more meaningfully with local communities. Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, emphasised that the initiative is about more than infrastructure – it’s about enabling women to contribute to lasting peace in South Sudan.

UNMISS, which includes over 13,000 uniformed personnel with ten percent being women, is working with the Elsie Initiative Fund to increase women’s participation in line with the UN Uniformed Gender Parity Strategy. The Elsie Initiative Fund, hosted by UN Women, is the only global fund dedicated to removing barriers to women’s participation in peacekeeping. It supports troop- and police-contributing countries through financial assistance and incentives, and is funded by donors including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom.

Original story by UN Women

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