Twenty-first semi-annual report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1559 (2004)

Code: S/2015/258

Period of time and topic: Review and assessment on the process of implementation of Security Council resolution 1559 (2004) from 7 October 2014 to 16 April 2015.

WPS Section

The report of the Secretary-General (S/2015/258) fails to make any references to the women, peace and security agenda.

References in Need of Improvement Section

Since the report of the Secretary-General (S/2015/258) makes no references to the women, peace and security agenda, there are no recommendations available.

Missed Opportunities Section

The report of the Secretary-General misses opportunities to address women’s protection, participation, and promotion concerns. Specifically, the report fails to provide information on women’s issues related to humanitarian efforts, the security sector, and violence in conflict.

In the report’s description of the Government of Lebanon’s crisis plan, the report emphasizes the efforts to address the humanitarian, protection, and socioeconomic needs of Syrian refugees without mentioning the need for gender-specific services.[1] The report does not include whether the crisis plan itself has been designed with women’s concerns in mind or called for the establishment of gender-specific services, which displays the lack of attention given to the specific needs of female refugees.

While the report states that the Governments of Saudi Arabia and France have donated funds towards counter-terrorism activities and the Government of Lebanon’s security sector, the report does not indicate whether this funding goes towards addressing women’s concerns in either area.[2] The report does not mention whether the funding goes towards the provision of gender sensitivity training, higher recruitment initiatives for women officers, or the integration of gender issues in the current counter-terrorism activities.

The report fails to provide sex-disaggregated data on the number of individuals either killed or targeted by armed militia and thus does not show the direct impact of the conflict on women.

Ideal Asks for WPS Transformation Section

The report should be improved with an explicit reference to and ideally an analysis of all genders, emphasizing diverse masculinities and femininities, including the dynamics between and amongst genders as well as the power relations and hierarchies at play, and the intersection of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class and age across all political peace and security processes.

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[1] S/2015/258, para. 40

[2] S/2015/258, para. 24