Post2015 Development Agenda - Toward Sustainable Development Goals

Post2015 Development Agenda - Toward Sustainable Development Goals

WILPF Peace Summit Civil Society Review

Monday, April 27, 2:00-2:45PM, World Forum (Oceania Room), the Hague

On 28 April 2015, WILPF PeaceWomen and the Post 2015 Women's Coalition held a WILPF 100 event, "Post2015 Development Agenda - Toward Sustainable Development Goals." This event brought attention to feminist sustainable development as a key tool for conflict prevention and peace.

With the United Nations (UN) and Member States in the process of defining a post-2015 development agenda, the WILPF100 Post-2015 event took place at a most opportune time.  The event provided the space for civil society peace leaders and activists to highlight peace and conflict prevention as critical elements for sustainable development; address the historical gaps between security and development; discuss political opportunities for leveraging the SDGs to strengthen conflict prevention work for gender justice and; promote stronger transnational feminist linkages with women peacemakers across the world.

Selam Tesfaye of the Post2015 Women’s Coalition shared the coalition’s work on promoting feminist sustainable development goals and reaffirmed that feminist, sustainable development is human development. She noted challenges continue, including ensuring that the promotion of a holistic approach that connects the dots between peace, governance, justice, conflict prevention and post-conflict peacebuilding and sustainable development policy promotes human security rather than militarizing development debates. She also highlighted a gap in the sustainable development discourse between gender inequality and militarization. The Post-2015 development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially Goal 16 on stable and peaceful societies, provide an opportunity to address these.

Gesa Bent of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), shared good practice on how regional organizations can link peace and development. In Fiji and the Pacific Islands region for example, women’s CSOs have engaged at the country level and with the regional Pacific Islands Forum to lobby for the implementation of UNSCR 1325. The resulting process of the development of the Pacific Regional Action Plan on Women Peace and Security (WPS) can serve as a model for women civil society organizations in setting regional targets and creating linkages between WPS, the SDGs and national and regional peace work.

Abigail Ruane of WILPF PeaceWomen highlighted the importance of recognizing that feminist development is sustainable development. She invited participants to use development tools at the local to international levels to address conflict prevention as a key gap area in the Women, Peace and Security agenda. She outlined the pledges of the Post2015 Women’s Coalition to connect the dots between women’s human rights and development activism and women’s peace activism, and to raise the bar in strengthening feminist leadership for transformative change.

Zarin Hamid of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership facilitated a discussion where participants discussed how to strengthen connections between sustainable peace and development activism and how to link international, national and regional peace advocacy. Participants committed to continuing to act in solidarity to amplify the voices of women in key policy spaces such as the ongoing post-2015 negotiations and at the regional and national levels. In doing so, participants committed to strengthening collaborations and feminist architecture for sustainable development, peace and gender justice.