General Women, Peace and Security

Anne Walker spent 11 years with the YWCA of Fiji that marked the beginning of her long career with grassroots women. Walker is one of the founders of the International Women's Tribune Centre ( IWTC) and has participated as an activist and organiser in all four UN world conferences on women and NGO Forums in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995).

The annual high-level segment of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) opened today with speakers calling for women and girls to be placed at the centre of the global struggle to achieve the social and economic targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The Women Leaders Intercultural Forum of Realizing Rights supported Presidents Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Tarja Halonen of Finland in co-convening an event on "Peace and Security through Women's Leadership: Acting on 1325 and Climate Change" during the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 24 September.

Endemic Fighting in Papua New Guinea

A high profile meeting held between Sudanese women and top United Nations leaders over the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325 on women peace and security could set a new agenda for women, Sudan Tribune has learnt.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently said that greater empowerment and more effective protection of women against the dangers of armed conflicts benefits everyone, not only women. This 8 March, NATO is marking International Women's Day by bringing prominent NATO women ‘back to school' to encourage more future female leaders to take part in building peace and security.

The Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) Campaign celebrates the United Nations General Assembly resolution, agreed to on 30 June and to be formally adopted by the General Assembly on Friday, 2 July, to establish “UN Women”—the new gender equality entity at the UN.

Parliaments in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia have joined forces to make sure that women are able to contribute to peace and security.

In the United Arab Emirates, a country that prides itself on modernity and its willingness to advance women's rights, the criminal court in Abu Dhabi has sentenced an 18-year-old Emirati woman to a year in prison for illicit sex after she reported that six men had gang-raped her.

Rwanda's National Action Plan on UN Security Council resolution 1325 was officially launched during the International Forum on the Role of Leadership in Promoting, Accelerating and Sustaining Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Kigali, Rwanda on 17-18 May.