Stepping Up Ireland's Response to Women, Peace and Security: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security (2000) demands recognition of the role of women in conflict prevention, management and resolution and calls on the international community to take specific steps to enhance women's meaningful participation in these processes and to protect women in times of conflict. Implementing UNSCR 1325 is a demanding and ambitious task, but one which must be fulfilled if the resolution is to be successful in ensuring women are given equal status with men in all efforts to address peace and security issues. The development of National Action Plans (NAPs) for the implementation of UNSCR 1325 by Member States was called for by the UN Secretary General in 2004. NAPs are considered to be the most effective way to translate the goals of UNSCR 1325 into reality. This paper was conceptualized and developed by the Irish Joint Consortium on Gender Based Violence (www.gbv.ie) to contribute in a practical way to the development of an Irish National Action Plan for the full implementation of UNSCR 1325. Research by the author for this paper was conducted over a three-month period and aimed to identify good practice examples of how NAPs have been developed by other countries. The paper outlines lessons learned from these processes, a brief overview of what they contain in terms of content and identifies good practices in terms of implementation, monitoring and evaluation – examples which Ireland could employ as it embarks on the development of its NAP. A set of recommendations is derived from this research and sets out a way forward for the development of an Irish NAP.