Also this year, the U.S. hosted a Senior Roundtable for Women's Justice, where judges from around
the world addressed women's lack of access to justice and discussed best practices to combat
violence against women and improve women's legal enfranchisement. The activity is wide-ranging
-- from Avon Products which contributed $1 million to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against

The international community also needs to better mobilise its resources, human
and financial, in support of post-conflict states. At the open debate on postconflict
peacebuilding in May, my Foreign Secretary identified this urgent
challenge.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has talked of the challenge to peacebuilding in Liberia in
the following terms: "My biggest fear is that a small group might succeed in
trying to return us to conflict. It will always remain a fear until we've done enough
in responding to the needs of the population". It is clear that mobilising and
enabling all available human resources within a country emerging from conflict is

There is a pressing need for capable and talented personnel to fill these staffing
and leadership positions. Against this backdrop, women appear to be a largely
untapped resource. We hope that this issue will be addressed within the
Secretary-General's report on post-conflict peacesbuilding that was requested at
the May debate.

So we have to think creatively. Member States have a role to play in ensuring
women's full and effective contribution during peace processes, supporting local
civil society efforts, deploying more women in support of peace support
operations and also in identifying and proposing talented women for senior
peacekeeping and peacebuilding positions. In turn, the UN needs to attract the

May I join others in thanking the Presidency for holding this open debate on a very
important issue. Women's role in helping to break the conflict cycle is multi-faceted. Legitimate
conflict resolution and peacebuilding needs a fully inclusive process. Most
importantly however, women's full participation is a question of effectiveness.
Women bring important skills and perspectives to the substance of negotiations

In 60 years of UN peacekeeping, only 7 women have held the post of Special
Representative of the Secretary-General. In terms of boots on the ground, a
measurement from April this year put the percentage of women military
personnel on UN operations at only 1.9%. Yet many militaries, including the
UK'S and other Troop and Police Contributing Countries, have a much higher

First, he stressed the need to strengthen the international community's ability to
offer coordinated and well-managed support to national authorities, in order to
ensure a common strategy to drive integrated political, security and development
activities. Second, he saw a requirement for increased national and international
civilian capacities to plan and implement stabilisation and recovery efforts.

Despite this Council's recognition of the vital role that women can play in the
areas of conflict prevention and resolution, the remcord of women's participation in
peace processes since the adoption of resolutiori 1325 in 2000 is poor.
Remarkably, there are currently no women engaged as Special Envoys of the
Secretary-General. The Council has very recently reiterated this concern, in its

While women may be the first casualties of war, they remain active agents of change and play a
meaningful role in the recovery and reintegration of their families. Women are also instrumental in
bringing about democracy and reconciliation in post-conflict societies. It is for that reason that
SADC welcomes this opportunity, on the eighth anniversary of the adoption of resolution 1325