Women in peace building (De Keyser report)
By: Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy

June 1, 2006 - (European Parliament) I very much welcome this debate and congratulate Ms De Keyser for her excellent report. The Commission is working hard to put the principles to which we’re committed into practice – and the European Parliament’s sustained commitment to these issues is vital to achieving that. We are fully committed to implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1325 of October 2000 on women, peace and security. And we’ve restated this commitment in the new Commission Communication “Roadmap on gender equality”.

Ms De Keyser’s report addresses the question of women in conflicts and as peace builders from many different angles, recognising the complexity of the issue. I support this approach – women should not be seen only as victims but also as key actors promoting war or peace. A female suicide bomber is a striking example of this complexity and this phenomenon deserves further study, as the report suggests.

The Commission’s two-pronged approach to promoting gender equality abroad is well reflected in the report. First, we take on board gender concerns in all policies and programmes (mainstreaming). Second, we fund specific projects to promote women. I am convinced this approach will remain valid in the future. Both mainstreaming and specific actions will continue to be necessary to fully mobilise women’s potential as peace builders. Mainstreaming is important because peace building comprises such a broad range of areas. These include peace negotiations, peacekeeping operations, demobilisation, disarmament, reintegration and rehabilitation (DDRR), but also election observation, security sector reform, institution building and strengthening civil society. The Commission is active in all these areas and we must put our gender mainstreaming tools and skills acquired through the related training program to good use.

The training program has already involved more than 800 Commission officials and other personnel in charge of implementing programs. Another example related to capacity building: we are supporting training in the area of crisis management, intended for Member States experts deployed in the field. Promoting gender equality in crisis management and conflict resolution is an integral part of this training. Gender aspects are also included in the peace building training targeting Commission staff. Supporting civil society organisations plays a key role in the projects we fund. As an example, at the moment we are training women in peaceful conflict resolution in Rwanda (€350.000) and strengthening women’s active participation in peace processes around the world, including Georgia and Colombia. Through ECHO, we are supporting several projects specifically focusing on women in countries affected by armed conflict, for example Afghanistan, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

This year, within the European Initiative on Democracy and Human Rights, we are focusing on issues such as equal treatment, women victims of gender-based violence in conflict zones and trafficking of women and children. We have received an impressive amount of project proposals for this campaign and are currently analysing them. In total €9,7 million are available for this campaign from the 2005 and 2006 budgets. In addition, this year we will be putting increased emphasis on gender in the Conflict Prevention Network funding. The aim is to encourage civil society organisations, think-thanks and academia to provide external analytical expertise to the Commission in the field of peace building, conflict prevention, management and resolution. Thank you.

From: http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/06/342&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en