General Assembly 2011

Tuesday September 13, 2011 marked the opening of the 66th General Assembly, resided by his Excellency Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser of Qatar. For two weeks, heads of state, foreign ministers, and other high-level representatives had the opportunity to address the entire international community with their concerns, priorities, and opinions about a variety of topics during the General Debate of the 66th General Assembly under the theme of “Strengthening the role of mediation in the peaceful settlement of disputes, conflict prevention and resolution”. This year's theme was especially relevant to the Women, Peace and Security agenda which seeks to promote the participation of women in peace processes and negotiations. Gender oriented references are important in order to promote a more inclusive mediation process and a widened interpretation of security.

WILPF monitored the debate and analyzed statements for gender and disarmament references which were then uploaded on the website according to their theme. The PeaceWomen project also created a master document that contains all the gender references that were made during the debate along with a gender index.

Out of 196 statements, a total of 89 speakers included references to gender or women in their statements. 16 speakers made general references to women and 73 made specific references to women, peace and security. 107 speakers made no reference to gender and/or women.