Portugal

I also wish to make a reference to the importance of women's contribution to this process, which was clearly underlined in the Secretary-General's report on women's participation in peacebuilding. The instrumental role that women play in economic recovery, social cohesion and political legitimacy — thus expanding the scope of national ownership and national capacity — makes it imperative to fully integrate the gender perspective into our goals. To relegate consideration of gender issues to later phases of peacebuilding would be to ignore the centrality of those issues in everything from institutional design to funding allocations to programme execution. Portugal is fully committed to a gender-responsive approach to each of the five peacebuilding priorities that have been outlined in the 2009 report of the Secretary-General on peacebuilding in the immediate aftermath of conflict (S/2009/304).