Peacekeeping

Thirdly, it is important to value and enhance the status and role of women at the different stages of peace processes.

Meaningful interaction with women's groups must also be an integral part of our peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities. Besides assisting missions in fulfilling their mandates, in particular regarding the protection of civilians, such groups can help ensure a sustained commitment to gender sensitivity.

Building capacity in the area of women and peace and security is also key. Late last year, Brazil signed a letter of intent with UN-Women, in order to deepen our cooperation regarding the training of peacekeepers on gender issues and the promotion of South-South cooperation on gender issues involving peacekeeping training centres in Latin America and Africa.

Botswana's support for United States-led resolution 66/130, aimed at encouraging the greater political participation of women and their expanded role in decision- making and peacekeeping, and which was adopted by the General Assembly's Third Committee in 2011, is a practical demonstration of our strong commitment in that regard.

There have been some developments in women, peace and security, such as the steps taken to implement the seven-point action plan on gender-responsive peacebuilding, the adoption of the United Nations strategic results framework on women and peace and security and the civilian capacity review. Prevention also gained an increased focus with the inclusion of the protection of civilians in the mandates of 8 out of 16 peacekeeping missions.

The core message of resolution 1325 (2000) was to ensure women's equal participation at all decision-making levels. In the United Nations context, women's participation should be ensured through achieving a 50/50 gender balance, with a special emphasis on the recruitment of women at higher levels. In general, more female military and police personnel need to be deployed to United Nations peacekeeping operations.

In the maintenance of international peace and security, we take pride in our modest contribution of troops and police to United Nations peacekeeping missions. We have made the necessary provisions to recruit women in the police and military. We are pleased that we could deploy two full contingents of all-female formed police units to the United Nations peacekeeping operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Haiti.

There is a clear need to increase the number of female military and police personnel in United Nations missions, and we appreciate the efforts taken by troop- and police-contributing countries to that end. At the same time, as the report of the Secretary-General underlines, increased numbers alone are not enough, and gender expertise is also needed.

As the Secretary-General has pointed out in his report, 37 States have adopted national action plans to implement that resolution. Several countries have also adopted temporary special measures to increase the number of women in decision-making bodies. The protection of civilians has been included in the mandates of 8 of 16 peacekeeping missions.

Much has been achieved in the 12 years since the adoption of resolution 1325 (2000). However, as the Secretary-General has pointed out, we clearly need to do more. The number of women in United Nations peacekeeping operations and political missions, including in senior positions in field missions, as well as appointments of women mediators, must be enhanced.