We will highlight the role and contribution of women to international peace and security, and the challenges and opportunities of ensuring a gender sensitive approach to peacekeeping. In all fields of peacekeeping, women peacekeepers have proven that they can perform the same roles, to the same standards and under the same difficult conditions, as their male counterparts.

Commander Ella van den Heuvel, who is a peacekeeper herself, will speak about the role women peacekeepers play in the missions, based on her field experience. Ella had a pioneering role as an early Gender Specialist in the military and in 2009, she was the first NATO Gender Adviser in the mission (ISAF) in Afghanistan, where she served twice. Ella recently returned from the UN Mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) where she served again in the role of military gender adviser.

Watch her story.