Peacekeeping

Secondly, our focus in future must be on building the capacities of women to build and sustain peace in their own countries. We must invest more in facilitating women's participation in political processes and in newly restructured security sector institutions. We must also work closely with local women to identify and implement protection strategies.

Resolution 1325 (2000) has fundamentally changed the conduct of peacekeeping operations over the past 10 years.

Naturally, we know that peacekeeping missions must cooperate closely with other United Nations partners present in the country in order to deliver coherent support that can be sustained when our missions withdraw. Our common response should, of course, demonstrate our unwavering commitment to the rights of women.

In the first instance, there are many more actors engaged in the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) at the field level today than was the case 10 years ago. Besides the gender expertise available within peacekeeping missions, many of our United Nations partner entities are also deploying gender experts to post-conflict countries. That requires that we strengthen the coordination of our efforts on the ground.

In Afghanistan, Darfur and Timor-Leste, we have seen to what extent the leaders of our peacekeeping operations can use their good offices to facilitate women's participation in political processes. The experience in the Democratic Republic of Congo clearly shows that forming partnerships with women in post-conflict situations greatly enhances our understanding of the operational environment.

In addition to those lessons, we can also cite a number of developments on the broader global and peacekeeping agenda in recent years that will influence our future strategy.

Fourthly, during the early post-conflict phases, when peacekeeping missions have the largest presence and resources on the ground, we will continue to provide the leadership and coordination of an integrated United Nations response.

Fifthly, we will actively support the strengthening of accountability and monitoring mechanisms for the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000). The recently developed standardized indicators are a welcome development. The specific indicators related to peacekeeping are, in fact, part of our existing reporting templates and guidelines.

A few months ago, the Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and of Field Support — DPKO and DFS — launched a joint study to review with our partners our implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) in post-conflict situations, the impact of our efforts to date and the implications for our workplan. That exercise has confirmed a certain number of important lessons. Allow me to underscore some of them here.

As part of our international outreach Denmark and the United States will co-host an international conference on "Role of Women in Global Security» in Copenhagen on 29 and 30 October. The conference will gather political, military, business and civil society leaders and experts to share best practices and discuss how to expand and effectuate women's key roles in peacemaking and peacekeeping and in security-related activities.