NEWSLETTER: on 10th Anniversary of UNSCR, GNWP: Connecting for Peace

Source: 
GNWP
Duration: 
Thursday, November 25, 2010 - 19:00
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
General Women, Peace and Security
Initiative Type: 
Online Dialogues & Blogs

Organizations from around the world gathered at the Peace Fair, a space for civil society to showcase their work on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women and peace and security and to share strategies and lessons learned on implementing the resolution. Running from October 25th to October 29th 2010, the Peace Fair was held at the UN Church Center in New York City. It featured panel discussions and workshops on topics such as female police peacekeepers and their role and impact in peace operations; women's involvement in reconciliation and healing processes in Zimbabwe; the obstacles to human security posed by the militarized security system that perpetuates global patriarchy, and the potential of feminist security perspectives to overcome them; operational guidelines for conflict resolution and peace processes; enhancing security and women's rights in Afghanistan; and engaging men in 1325 implementation. The Peace Fair was also the venue for two 1325 cyberdialogues – real time web conferences between global policy makers and women peace activists from Iraq, Liberia, Nepal and Sierra Leone and other conflict affected countries. The cyberdialogues generated practical recommendations for implementing 1325 at the country level.

The Peace Fair was held to mark the tenth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The adoption of Resolution 1325 on October 31, 2000 was a crucial turning point in policy discussions that recognized the specific impact of armed conflict on women and women's contribution to peacebuilding as international peace and security agenda. The Peace Fair was jointly organized by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, the International Civil society Action Network, United Methodist Women, Hague Appeal for Peace, PeaceWomen.org, PeaceWomen Across the Globe, and Centro de Educacion e Investigacion Para la Paz.

Peace Fair participants Isabelle Geuskens and Jose de Vries of the Women Peacemakers Program of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation were impressed with the representation of civil society and the networking possibilities that the fair presented. “Because of the Peace Fair, civil society was well represented at the Security Council and other official meetings. We expected a space where people could network; be critical regarding where we are 10 years later; learn from each others work; and find materials on 1325 – and all that was there,” Geuskens said.

Euphemia Dzathor from the Women's Peacemakers Program (WPP) – Africa Desk and the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, felt that the location of the Fair was key. “The venue added more to the success since it was close to the UN and gave it the flavor of the 10th anniversary,” Dzathor said. Indeed, the location made events, such as the Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security held at the UN Security Council on Tuesday October 26th, accessible to Peace Fair attendees. Bandana Rana, President of Saathi, agreed. “The biggest impact on me was to be able to meet and hear directly from personalities of whom we had only heard, such as Ambassador Chowdhury, Mary Robinson, Helen Clark, etc. To be able to interact directly and share our ground realities was a great opportunity that the peace fair provided” Rana said. Amat Mbambi of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom – DRC felt the same way. “My highlight of the Peace Fair was to be on the same panel with Ms. Margot Wallstrom, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict to discuss how sexual violence can be prevented most effectively,” Mbambi said.

The cyberdialogues, which took place on Monday, October 25 and Friday, October 29, brought together high-level participants in New York and women on the ground in conflict-affected communities. On Monday, global policy makers such as UNDP Administrator and former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, and former Ambassador of Bangladesh to the United Nations, Anwarul K.Chowdhury and women on the ground from all over the world shared thoughts on how UNSCR 1325 has been implemented since 2000. In her opening of the Peace Fair, Clark highlighted the role of civil society in “keeping an eye on implementation and working to strengthen it.” Speaking from the ground in Sierra Leone, Gladys Brima from the Women's Partnership for Justice and Peace emphasized the need to connect women's economic empowerment to the issue of peace and security. “How can we talk about peace,” she asked, “when 74% of the population in Sierra Leone live on less than 50c/day?” Jeanne Bitsure from WPP – Burundi mentioned that despite the high level of women's participation in government in Burundi, which is often cited as an exemplary country, women are absent in the police and defense sectors, to name a few.

As the Peace Fair progressed throughout the week, the theme was increasingly more forward looking and future goal orientated. Women peace activists from Cyprus, Iraq, Liberia and Nepal participated in the second cyber-dialogue. The cyberdialogue panelists in New York included film producer Abigail Disney; former UN Special Representative of the Secretary General to Côte d'Ivoire Pierre Schori; ICAN Executive Director Sanam Anderlini; and Cora Weiss, President of Hague Appeal for Peace. The cyberdialogue made it increasingly clear that work on implementing 1325 was not near complete. The discussions highlighted that the main issue of concern was the need to continue to raise awareness on the resolution and empower women to act on their awareness. Participants also raised practical suggestions such as setting up a hotline in every UN peacekeeping mission that women could contact anytime. Sundus Abass Hassan, Director of Women's Leadership Institute joining from Iraq, emphasized that “peace does not only represent the cessation of armed conflict but also opportunities to access resources, services and finances and equal opportunity to reach decision making positions.” She hoped that 1325 could constitute the framework for the United Nations Mission in Iraq. Speaking in Nepali, Saritha Devi Sharma representing Saathi in the conflict affected mid- and western region of Nepal, said that before women are given economic empowerment and access to justice 1325 will have no meaning for them. Nonetheless she expressed hope at the newly developed national action plan, which took into consideration the concerns and suggestions of conflict-affected women. She further requested that the Nepali government support the plan and appealed to the Security Council to make effective implementation as well as monitoring mandatory.

For other Peace Fair attendees, what would be done in the next ten years was the main concern. “For me the question I keep asking is if women become aware of the existence of the resolution, how are they going to use it to claim or fight for their rights without the necessary resources and power to back its implementation? In my work I think that apart from just training women to know that such an instrument exists, they should also be empowered to hold office bearers accountable,” Dzathor said. “The main question the Peace Fair left me with is: What next? We all concluded that 1325 still needs a lot of work, and that 10 years down the line not enough is done by the member states and the UN in general” deVries said. “The 10th anniversary is such a crucial moment – we need to prevent another 10 years of stagnation.”

During the Week of the 10th anniversary commemorations GNWP also launched two publications that GNWP members and partners have been working on for the past year. Women Count – United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325: Civil Society Monitoring Report, was launched at the Canadian Mission on October 25. The report is based on the work of GNWP members in Afghanistan, Burundi, Canada, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Fiji, Nepal, Netherlands, Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Uganda who participated in this first phase of monitoring of UNSCR 1325 at country level. GNWP is committed to carrying out the monitoring project again in 2011 in the same countries to assess progress made and persisting gaps one year after the 10th anniversary and determine whether the commitments that the United Nations, Member States, and other key stakeholders made during the 10th anniversary were actually pursued and implemented. Additionally GNWP will add countries in which members have expressed keen interest to take part in the monitoring exercise, but were unable to in the first phase, due to lack of funding and/or human resources.

Costing and Financing UN Security Council Resolution 1325 – Examining the Resources Needed to Implement Women, Peace and Security Resolutions at the National Level, a study commissioned by Cordaid and GNWP, was launched on October 27, at the UN. The study, which is currently going through a revision process, analyses the resources available and needed to implement the resolution, and also looks at the complicated funding landscape for women and peace and security programs, presenting recommendations on how to make resource allocation efficient and effective.

Additionally, GNWP program partner International Civil society Action Network (ICAN) launched their case study assessment, What the Women Say: Particpation and UNSCR 1325, a study that examines efforts by key actors to address women's participation in peace processes.