There is clear evidence of women’s active local-level engagement in promoting peace, and yet as previously noted this often does not translate into involvement in higher-level peace-building processes. This exclusion can have adverse implications for the protection of women in these societies as well as impede long-term resolution of the conflicts. Overall, the countries of the Commonwealth have seen a relative decline in the number of conflicts in the 2000s relative to the previous decade. During the 1990s at least 10 Commonwealth countries were engaged in full-scale conflict – including Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Uganda – with peace agreements reached in most by the early years of the twenty-first century. Women played instrumental roles in many of the efforts to bring these conflicts to an end. Yet, in a large number of countries women’s substantial efforts were not recognised in formal negotiations and their perspectives and insights were not included in the final peace agreements or in post-conflict reconciliation efforts.