A Security Dividend Peacekeeping and Maternal Health Outcomes and Access

UNSCR 1325 highlights the distinct needs of women in security and access to health and education. Few studies explore how peacekeeping affects women’s access to health and education. We argue that PKOs have both a direct and an important indirect impact on maternal health and women’s well-being. First, peacekeeping can have a direct effect by providing medical and training facilities. Second, peacekeeping has an indirect effect as improvements in the overall level of security facilitates women’s access to medical services and education. We examine the peacekeeping’s impact on outcomes at both the country-level, using a sample of 45 African countries, as well as in within country, grid-cell level, using geo-coded data UN deployment and information from the Demographic and Health Surveys in three sub-Saharan countries. We find strong empirical support for a positive relationship between peacekeeping presence and maternal health outcomes and access to services.