This exclusion can have adverse implications for the protection of women in these societies as well as impede long-term resolution of the conflicts. 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.