Peacemaking in Asia and the Pacific: Women's Participation, Perspectives, Priorities

It is a pleasure and an honour to be writing the introduction to this valuable HD Centre publication Peacemaking in Asia Pacific: Women's participation, perspectives and priorities. This brief and accessible publication offers those who work in and on peace processes a range of new and useful evidence and pointers not only for implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and its sister resolutions, but simply for creating better peace processes.

While the issue of women's involvement in peace process continues to be a real and burning issue for those of us working in Nepal, this is truly a global concern. Showing leadership on achieving equal representation by men and women in influential positions continues to be a global challenge, not least in the organisation I represent – the United Nations (UN).

The first woman to head any peacekeeping or political mission for the UN was appointed nearly fifty years after its founding – Margaret Joan Anstee (Special Representative of the Secretary General to Angola 1992-3). Seventeen years after Dame Margaret's appointment, in early 2009, I became only the eighth woman in the UN to head such a mission. However, to date, the UN has yet to appoint a woman as a dedicated lead mediator in support of any major, comprehensive peace agreement process.

The growing body of research showing the influence of women on peace agreements indeed underlines that the benefits are important and all to the good. But linking the engagement of women in peace negotiations to what they have suffered still underscores women's experience as victims. This publication helps to remind us that women have a right to sit at the negotiating table as actors with a stake in the future of their country and with a stake in international peace and security. Women belong there as decision-makers and as problem-solvers.

Women working our way into top national and international political and peacemaking posts is an achievement in itself, and still a very incomplete one that needs much more support. In June 2010, I took part in the global open day in Kathmandu on Resolution 1325. On that day, I was reminded of the experiences of women during and as a result of the conflict in Nepal, and also of the enormous resources and engagement among Nepali women whether they are members of the Constituent Assembly, active in civil society, or approaching the issues from a more academic point of view. I am convinced this is not a resource unique to Nepal. We need to see more women in the formal and informal processes where decisions on peace and security are made, here and all over the world.

And for that to happen, there has to be a deliberate strategy. The UN Department of Political Affairs and UNIFEM (now UN Women) have set out a strategy for supporting more, and more effective, women's participation at all levels of conflict resolution and mediation. It involves building up gender expertise in mediation processes - so that mediators, and all parties, understand the implications for women's rights of their draft agreements. Second, it aims to build better gender balance among the ranks of mediators, emphasising that this aspect is integral to negotiations, not an add-on. And third, it seeks to engage more women outside the negotiating parties to impress their priorities on the principal actors in peace talks.

This publication makes an excellent contribution to achieving these aims, bringing the reality not only of the benefits and obstacles to women's participation, but also of actionable strategies as to how this can be achieved. It is a must-read
for anyone with a serious interest not just in Asia Pacific peace processes, but peace processes across the world.

Karin Landgren
Representative of the Secretary General
United Nations Mission in Nepal
Kathmandu
January 2011