Japan expects UN-Women, in cooperation with other partners including the Department of Political Affairs, to coordinate and strengthen the efforts of the United Nations system in this area and provide guidance to regional organizations and Member States in their efforts in mediation.

In order to prevent the recurrence of conflict and sustain long-standing peace, the needs of women and girls must be fully addressed in post-conflict peacebuilding. To that end, it is essential that women's full and effective participation be ensured from the very beginning of conflict prevention and mediation processes.

Women's participation in conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy is crucial to achieving peace, as the Security Council highlights in its decision to mark the 11th anniversary of Resolution 1325 on “Women and Peace and Security”.

To achieve more consistent, serious progress in the implementation of 1325 at the global level, Italy welcomes the strategic framework and its concrete targets to guide the UN's implementation of Resolution 1325 developed by the Secretary-General, and the use of the set of indicators to monitor progress in implementing the framework. The framework will ensure a more comprehensive approach and more result-oriented action by the UN system.

Third, it is not enough to simply advocate the participation of women in peace processes. We need to provide concrete support for women to build the skills needed for meaningful involvement. And education is crucial. At the same time, social barriers blocking women's access to peace processes need to be addressed.

Since then Italy has had regular contacts with civil society organizations to benefit from their experience in the field, particularly in the collection of sex-disaggregated data. The national focal point is promoting awareness activities by disseminating the plan throughout all sectors of Government and society.

Second, women's rights must be an integral part of peace agreements. One of the measurement of the success of a peace settlement is the extent to which obligations under the Convention on the Discrimination against Women and other international human rights conventions are fulfilled.

Last, it is high time we fully mainstream Resolution 1325 into the work of the Security Council. The Council should ensure that resolutions, including mission mandates and renewals, consistently integrate and substantively advance the “Women and Peace and Security” agenda.

In the field of education and training, gender-perspective modules have now been included in most of NATO's pre-deployment training efforts. This is an area where we feel we can benefit from the experience of other international organisations and we are thus pleased to be contributing to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) project aimed at Supporting Gender Mainstreaming in Security Sector Reform in the Western Balkans.

In December 2010 Italy adopted a three-year action plan on Resolution 1325. The plan provides a strategic framework to improve implementation of 1325 by having a national focal point at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs monitor all relevant activities.