This open debate, Mr. President, is an excellent and timely opportunity for the Council to express its strong support for the efforts of individual women and women's networks and organizations that are doing so much for peace and security from the grassroots to the international level. Portugal naturally aligns itself with the statement of the European Union that will be made later on.

This Council has adopted a Presidential Statement encouraging efforts to strengthen the capacities of women's organizations to engage in conflict prevention and mediation. Portugal strongly supports these specific efforts by Members States and the UN. In this regard, we welcome DPKO and UN Women's efforts to give technical support to women's organizations at local and regional level to strengthen women's civil society groups.

Resolution 1325 is a powerful message to encourage women around the world, in countries at war and countries in peace, to engage in the future of their countries and in the promotion of peace and security. In this regard, Portugal remains fully committed to this objective and engaged in enhancing action at the national and international level to fulfill these goals.

Likewise, we also had opportunities to meet with several gender advisers from UN peacekeeping missions and learned from them about the extremely valuable work that they have been doing to support the political participation of women in countries like Côte d'Ivoire, the DRC, Timor Leste or Haiti and to implement the broader Women Peace and Security mandates.

Every effort must be made to promote women's full and equal participation in electoral processes, as candidates and as voters, and to eliminate discriminatory or legal barriers against women's participation. Lack of access to education but also the fight against violence and in particular sexual violence should also be addressed in this context.

During the past two years in the Council, Portugal has been working not only to support the promotion and protection of the rights of women but also to support women's political participation in situations in the agenda of the Council, be it in Libya, Somalia, South Sudan or in Afghanistan.

Another key aspect of the Council's work in the implementation of resolution 1325 is its monitoring of women's participation in political processes in post-conflict situations. In this context, it is important to invite USG Michelle Bachelet (as it was done during the past 2 years) to regularly brief the Council on women's political participation in concrete situations in its agenda.

UNSC Resolution 1325 made an important contribution to the normative framework for the protection of women and girls in armed conflict. It elevates women from being hapless victims of conflict situations to equal stakeholders in prevention and resolution of conflicts, as well as in post-conflict reconstruction. Women are true agents of change.

Today's debate underlines the important role of women's civil society organizations in prevention and resolution of armed conflict, as well as follow up peace-building processes.

The Council must continue to include gender perspectives in its resolutions relating to peacekeeping operations as well as in the appointment of well trained gender and women protection advisors. The United Nations and its agencies should develop ways to address the special needs of women and girls affected by armed conflict, especially in regard to health and psychological care.