Statement of Hungary

Hungary strongly supports the efforts to increase the meaningful participation of women at all stages and levels of peace processes. We also encourage Member States to support women’s engagement in local, national and global decision-making structures, including the participation of women in electoral processes. We have heard today strong examples. They should inspire all of us because they are examples for all of us and through those examples we could create mechanisms that enable the participation of women in conflict resolution, peacebuilding and conflict prevention. In this period, for example, Hungary financed a gender-based training workshop in Kenya within the framework of its international development cooperation strategy. Women play a key role in areas affected by conflict in ensuring the livelihoods of their families in the midst of chaos, and are particularly active in community- building and peace movements at the grass-roots level. However, such women-led organizations are noticeably fewer, or even absent, from formal peace processes. We hope to see recognized the important role that civil society and women-led organizations play in peace processes. Similarly, the increased participation of women in peacekeeping missions is of the utmost importance. Their contribution could be particularly useful in designing and implementing strategies for the protection of civilians and humanitarian assistance. The Security Council should also continue to promote women’s participation and gender mainstreaming as part of making peacebuilding processes and post-conflict recovery efforts more inclusive. We do not only want women to be present in decisionmaking at the negotiation table because it is just; we want them to be included because history has shown so many times that the participation of women is vital to peacebuilding and the creation of peaceful and inclusive societies.