Statement of the United States of America at the 2016 WPS Debate

Unfortunately, what the statistics miss is the persistent gap between how men and women actually contribute to peace processes. Even if women are present at the table, which is still too rare, men are the ones who almost always decide when and how to make peace. Therefore, today I would like to talk briefly about why we need to do more to promote not mere participation but meaningful and effective participation, with a stress on the word “effective”.

Let me start by describing the benefits of women’s participation. As we have heard — and, again, these are the same studies all of us cite — peace processes are more likely to succeed when women are involved. One study of 40 peace processes since 1989 found that, the more women influenced a negotiation, the higher the likelihood that an agreement would be reached. Another study found that the likelihood of a peace agreement lasting more than two years increased by 20 per cent when women were involved. Why is that? In part, it is because women often demand results. When negotiations stall, as they inevitably do, women’s groups can help push for talks to resume and press the parties to reach consensus. Women tend to demand more than what is politically expedient or in their narrow self-interest. Again, this is on the basis

of limited data, because of the limited participation, but women’s groups are known for lobbying for causes that do go beyond gender, including for human rights, transitional justice and reconciliation to be addressed in peace agreements. Those are causes that are all too often deferred or ignored when women are not there.

Here I will turn to the example of the Philippines. In negotiations between the Government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a group seeking greater autonomy for the country’s south, women were active at every level, from working groups to serving as lead negotiators. After negotiators reached an impasse in 2010, the women participants called for a national dialogue that generated new ideas to get the parties talking again. When violence broke out after the signing of the 2012 framework agreement, women helped organize protests calling for the parties to get back to the table.

Or let us consider the Colombia peace process, where up to one-third of the participants at the table were women. Those female representatives lobbied relentlessly so that those who committed sexual violence in the conflict would not be eligible for pardons. And they advocated for economic support to help women access new development opportunities in rural areas.

But these examples are still the exceptions. In Syria, South Sudan and Yemen, men are the ones making decisions, even as we sit here in negotiations. Maybe it is time to heed the famous aphorism that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Too often, what gets labelled as women’s participation is just checking a box — a perfunctory meeting of male negotiators with female members of civil society. This matters not just for the content of a peace agreement itself; when children see peace accords signed by groups of men, the message received is that the men are the ones who matter in affairs of State and who are empowered to end conflicts. We do not want young girls internalizing that message. We members of the Security Council need to demand that women have the ability to influence the course of negotiations, not just because women deserve it — which of course they do — but because when women are effective and meaningful participants, we have a better chance at achieving the mission of the Security Council, which is preserving peace and security.

Those women, however, are not just victims of violence. Their experiences need to be part of the long process of healing and rebuilding from a conflict. Recognizing their dignity means not just inviting them to negotiations but making sure that they are not relegated to waiting in a side room for the men to break from the real negotiations and to deign to come in and receive their petition or hear their views. That may sound simple, but frequently Member States treat violence against women as a tragic by- product of conflict, left to resolve itself once the men stop fighting.

Let me conclude with Liberia. Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee organized women who were fed up with the violence of Liberia’s civil war. When the negotiators went to Ghana, Leymah and her growing movement went too, surrounding the negotiators in their hall to make sure that they did not come out until peace was reached. As she told a reporter at the time, the protest was “a signal to the world that we the Liberian women in Ghana at this conference are fed up with the war and tired of fighting the killing of our people”. Leymah added, “We can do it again if we want to”.

Let us imagine where we would be if every conflict had groups of women like this. Now let us imagine our world if people like Leymah were not just calling for peace from outside conference centres, but if she and others like her were sitting at the table on the inside. Before a conflict, during a conflict and after a conflict, women must have an effective, meaningful and impactful voice. We on the Council must not rest until paper progress becomes tangible progress and check-the-box participation becomes meaningful participation.