Two decades on from the adoption by the United Nations (UN) of the zero tolerance policy, the chapters in this volume have collectively presented broad investigations into the efforts to address sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by peacekeepers and humanitarian aid workers. The contributors have bought into conversation theory, research and practice in analysing the effectiveness and unintended consequences of efforts to prevent and respond to SEA. In doing so, they have clearly identified the structural and systemic obstacles facing effective prevention of and accountability for SEA and drawn out the often- missing links between the pursuit of protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) and broader processes of decolonization, anti- racism and localization in peacekeeping and aid. Critically, they have also laid out the implications of their analysis for policy makers, practitioners and scholars working in this area.

In this final chapter, I build on the discussions in preceding chapters to highlight the overarching policy implications this collection has for how we might better understand and respond to SEA in peacekeeping and aid. I reflect on the fault- lines that have emerged in PSEA and the potential for new ways of making sense of, and responding to, SEA perpetrated by peacekeepers and humanitarian aid workers against those populations in conflict and crisis, in which they live and work.

Challenges: the missing pieces of prevention

A key theme that has emerged across the chapters in this collection is that structural and systemic obstacles continue to hamper effective, grounded local PSEA work, despite both significant progress and investment in building stronger integrity systems across the UN and humanitarian sectors and the elevation of victim- centred approaches as a cornerstone of PSEA. As Naik and I illustrated, policy developments have often been reactively pursued in response to major SEA scandals, in attempts to both plug the holes such scandals reveal in accountability mechanisms and salvage credibility in the eyes of the public for the critically important work of peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. However, these developments often tend to prioritize procedural accountability rather than prevention of the occurrence of SEA in the first place through addressing the factors that give rise to it in different ways in different operational contexts.