PRESS RELEASE: New Initiative to Boost Funding for Women, Peace and Security

6 September, 2016

The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) will on 9 September launch a toolkit to boost action on women, peace and security financing.

The toolkit, available at www.peacewomen.org/wps-financing, includes a motion graphics explainer video available in five languages, case studies, fact sheets, social media graphics and media guides. It is intended to stimulate advocacy among non-governmental actors, and push the United Nations and national governments to shift their funding focus from war to gender justice and peace.

WILPF, a non-profit peace organisation with national sections in 33 countries, produced the toolkit to address the striking disparity between military funding and peace and gender equality funding across the globe.

“We reject the idea that there is no money for gender justice,” said Abigail Ruane, Director of WILPF’s Women, Peace and Security program (PeaceWomen).

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2015 there was a global military expenditure of $1.6 trillion. Meanwhile only two percent of aid to fragile states in 2012-2013 targeted gender equality as a principal objective, according to the Global Study on UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

“If the international community wants peace, it needs to invest more in gender equality and social justice policies,” Dr Ruane said.

“Our toolkit shows that instead of funding war, the UN and member states should invest in gender- responsive budgeting, transparency in defence budgets, National action Plans on Women, Peace, and Security, and civil society-inclusive UN funds.”

Surveys carried out by WILPF affirm the pressing need for resources to help strengthen women, peace and security financing. In one such survey, almost three-quarters of respondents said strengthening finance on peace and gender justice was “very important” (8-10 on a scale of 1-10).

More than 63 percent of respondents said they were in need to technical support to secure funding on gender and peace work.

The interactive toolkit forms part of a larger Women, Peace and Security Project by WILPF, which also consists of an event for government actors, a civil society workshop and a series of surveys.

It will be launched at the AWID International Forum, Brazil on 9 September.

Find WILPF’s women, peace and security financing toolkit at www.peacewomen.org/WPS-Financing 

Media enquiries: Abigail Ruane, + 1 212 682 1265, abigail@peacewomen.org 

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Download the press release below