Allow me to address the issue of women in promoting peace and security and wh...

Allow me to address the issue of women in promoting peace and security and what we have been trying to do to enhance the empowerment of women in general in the post-conflict situation. Nepal has come a long way after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord in 2006 in terms of ensuring women's participation at the decision-making level. The election S/PV.6722 (Resumption 1) 14 12-23937 of women to one-third of the seats in Parliament has sent a very strong signal about the unprecedented equality and empowerment of women, with deep reverberations of change in Nepalese society.

Nepal has accorded high priority to the implementation of the many Security Council resolutions on women and peace and security as we move from conflict to durable peace, stability and economic development. In that context, Nepal is proud to stand with its distinctive five-year national action plan for the effective implementation of the Council's resolutions on women and peace and security. We have already started the implementation of our national action plan through a multi-pronged approach whereby Parliament, Government ministries, judiciaries, political parties and civil society are involved in their respective areas. That will ensure the meaningful participation by women at all levels of the decisionmaking process of governance, including in conflict transformation and peacebuilding processes. We have also put in place mechanisms at the local level, together with some strong monitoring mechanisms, to follow up on implementation. We welcome the genuine partnership and collaboration of the international community in our endeavour. In that regard, we reiterate our conviction that partnership and cooperation must be forged for building and promoting national capacity.

Nepal has taken a number of initiatives to take care of the special needs of women and bring them forward. It is mandatory that women participate at a rate of at least 33 per cent in the constitution of local peace committees at the district level, which are empowered to address post-conflict-related issues at the local level. Nepal has been implementing gender-based budgeting for some years, through which gender mainstreaming has been getting special attention in all development activities. Nepal has introduced a policy of affirmative action in various areas, including in the civil service, with a view to ensuring that women participate at the decision-making level in the public sector.

We have adopted various measures to fight against sexual and gender-based violence, notably by establishing of a follow-up office in the Office of the Prime Minister, a gender violence prevention fund, and gender violence control committees in all 75 districts of the country. We are committed to expanding women and children service centres in police stations across the country to ensure the expeditious investigation and the prosecution of cases of sexual and gender-based violence. Furthermore, we are committed not only to increasing the number of women in our army and police force, but also to contributing an increasing number of them to United Nations peacekeeping operations. We have integrated the essential portion of courses on the protection of women and girls from sexual violence during and after conflict in our peacekeeping training package. Nepal is fully aware of the Secretary-General's zero tolerance policy and has expressed its commitment to fully supporting the endeavour.