Gender training and capacity building for security personnel have become some of the key approaches to promoting gender equality and implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda in security sector institutions. 

It is often expected to support a variety of objectives related to gender equality: it is expected to contribute to institutional change, policy development, increased contextual awareness, and capacity to respond to gender-specific security needs. At the same time, it is adapted to fit into institutions that are often male-dominated and influenced by traditionally masculine norms. 

This paper provides an overview of literature on gender training in peace operations and security institutions. The main goal of the Elsie Initiative is to increase the meaningful participation of women in UN peace operations.

Therefore, while the review addresses literature on the security sector in general, it emphasizes training for personnel in peace operations and troop and police contributing countries.

The need for the paper arose from the questions: how, and when does gender training contribute to the results we expect it to? What are the mechanisms that enable gender training to have an impact? How can we bridge the evidence-based knowledge of what works, with the limitations of our everyday working context? The purpose is not to criticize gender training as a practice, but to bring critical perspectives from academic literature together with best practices from practitioners, and to offer recommendations for ensuring gender training has the intended impact.

All gender training cannot have the same purpose, but the purpose and relevance of each training should be clearly defined to ensure that it meets the required objectives and that results can be followed up on. 

The primary audience is practitioners who conduct gender training for security sector personnel, particularly in the context of the Elsie Initiative. We also add practitioner perspectives to the academic conversation on gender training. 

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