What progress has been made in integrating gender into security sector reform (SSR)? What issues concerning gender and SSR require further attention? This report documents a workshop held at the Free University of Berlin in November 2008 on ‘Engendering Security Sector Reform’. It finds that the debate on gender and SSR is still only incipient and that many questions remain unanswered. SSR will only live up to its ambitious aspirations if it places gender squarely at the centre of its conceptual thinking and practice.

Given the normative concerns of SSR it would seem that gender issues should be central to the conceptualisation and practice of SSR. Yet until recently gender concerns have been marginal to SSR policy. In the past few years, however, major institutions involved in SSR have increasingly recognised the centrality of gender to the conceptualisation and practice of SSR.