INTERNATIONAL: At UN Consultations, Women Peace Advocates in Post-Conflict Countries Highlight Urgent Need to Engage Women in Peacebuilding

United Nations “Global Open Day for Women and Peace” kicks off 10th anniversary commemorations of UN Security Council resolution 1325

Starting this week, the UN-organized Global Open Day for Women and Peace sees senior-most UN officials in post-conflict countries meet with women peace advocates to discuss how to increase women's participation in sustainable conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Special Representatives of the Secretary-General and other high-level officials in more than 20 countries are participating in the consultations, which take place in the lead-up to the 10th anniversary of landmark Security Council resolution 1325 on women and peace and security.

“This anniversary is an opportunity to reaffirm the core message of that landmark text: sustainable peace is possible only with women's full participation — their perspectives, their leadership, their daily, equal presence wherever we seek to make and keep the peace,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a message.

“The Global Open Day for Women and Peace is meant to reinvigorate our efforts to realize the vision set out in resolution 1325. I count on all partners to support the United Nations in translating women's priorities into real and meaningful action,” he added.

Adopted ten years ago this October, resolution 1325 puts women's experiences of conflict on the international peace and security agenda, focusing attention on the impact of conflict on women, and calling for women's engagement in conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

However, while some progress has been made in the last ten years, gaps in implementation of the resolution remain. Women still do not play an equal role in peace processes or see their concerns fully reflected in peace agreements. Studies indicate that in 24 peace processes over the past two decades, women formed less than 8 percent of negotiating teams. There is also a persistent shortfall in the financing of women's needs in post-conflict recovery plans, along with very high level of sexual violence in conflicts. In a sample of 300 peace agreements signed since the end of the Cold War, only 18 include a mention of sexual and gender violence.

Global Open Day highlights:

• In Liberia, women peace leaders presented Special Representative of the Secretary-General Ellen Margreth Løj with a policy statement that highlighted three areas of concern: sexual violence; peacebuilding; and security sector reform, with specific recommendations on how to promote and sustain peace and security in Liberia.
  
• In Sierra Leone, Kosovo (under UNSCR 1244), Nepal, Sudan and Somalia, women peace advocates seized the opportunity of the Open Day to highlight their urgent concerns including the need to increase women's representation at the decision-making levels, for protection from conflict, and for an immediate end to impunity for war crimes, including sexual violence.
  
• In the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 350 participants to the Open Day urged the United Nations and government officials to take concrete steps to increase the participation of women in decision-making on peace and security, and to fully enforce laws on the advancement of women, gender parity and punishment for perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence.

In the coming weeks Open Days will be held in Afghanistan, Haiti, Pakistan, Iraq, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire and Burundi, among others.

Recommendations resulting from all Open Days will be forwarded to the UN Security Council ahead of its October meeting on the implementation of resolution 1325.

The Global Open Day for Women and Peace is organized by the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), the UN Department of Political Affairs (DPA), the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

Take action

UNIFEM's online 1325 Petition is available on its global advocacy platform http://www.saynotoviolence.org/.

For more information

Please go to: http://www.unifem.org/campaigns/1325plus10/global-open-day/