CONFERENCE FOLLOW-UP: National Conference on Women, Peace and Security Opens in Ghana

A national conference to discuss United Nation Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325 on Women's involvement in Peace and Security opened in Accra on Thursday.

The conference marks the climax of a series of roundtables organized by the Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-Africa) and the Canadian High Commission with personnel of the different security sector institutions in Ghana over a period of 10 months.

Ms Nuala Lawlor, Counsellor, Canadian High Commission, in her opening statement, said the conference would focus on the theme: "Moving Beyond the Rhetoric towards Accountable Implementation in Ghana's Security Sector".

She argued that Ghana had not made much progress since the adoption of the Resolution which sought the advancement of women's rights, empowerment, participation and equality in the context of conflict, peace and security, among other things.

She said women's participation in conflict prevention and resolution, peace building, peacekeeping, construction efforts of conflicts as well as decision making sectors had been very negligible.

Ms Lawlor attributed the slow progress by UN member states to fully implement the resolution to lack of awareness at different levels, lack of capacity to operationalise it, poor monitoring, compartmentalization of issues raised by the Resolution, poor coordination among sectors, as well as poor funding and continued stereotyping of the Resolution as "a women's only tool".

She noted that the misconception of the Resolution as "a women's only tool" was more acute in the security sector, which was rooted in the ideologies of militarism and masculinities, leading to the scarce participation of women in the sector.

Ms Lawlor said the fragmented nature of gender-sensitive training given to security personnel and the absence of punitive mechanisms to address violations and discriminations against women within the sector contributed largely to undermine the Resolution.

"Further, most security sector personnel are unaware of the existence of the Resolution and consequently do not make a conscious effort to utilize the instrument in their day to day work, yet knowledge and application of the UNSCR 1325 is important to particularly Ghana as its security sector is increasingly participating in peace support operations", she said.

Ms Lawlor said it was the objective of the series of roundtables organized so far with the security sector agencies to assess their levels of implementation of the Resolution and further present key recommendations to the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs (MOWAC) for inclusion in Ghana's National Action Plan on the UNSCR 1325.

She said this would increase awareness and help identify the capacity gaps as well as the entry points for supporting the implementation of the Resolution to bring about immediate interventions in the security sector.

Ms Leymah Gbowee, Executive Director, WIPSEN-Africa, also blamed the low participation of women in the security service sector to the absence of a National Security Policy in Ghana and the lack of political will to shift gender resolutions to promote gender mainstreaming.