General Women, Peace and Security

After more than 10 years since it was passed, the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (Women, Peace and Security) is gaining more attention with the opportunity to develop and present a Regional Action Plan at the 2012 Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting.

“Recognize the capacity of civil society to facilitate and manage funds for 1325 implementation and explore partnerships with the private sector,” are but a few of the recommendations of the recently revised study “Costing and Financing 1325,” jointly commissioned by the Dutch Development Aid Organization, Cordaid and the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), a coalition of women's groups and other civil society

No matter how progressive laws to promote equality between men and women may be, without budgets with a gender perspective that allocate resources differentially, inequality will persist in Latin America.

Speaking to the US congress in May, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu boasted that his country is a beacon of freedom in the Middle East and North Africa, that it is the only place where Arabs "enjoy real democratic rights".

Libyan women's groups recently staked their claim to a more meaningful role in the reconciliation and reconstruction of their country. They noted, among other things, that women were largely absent from the recent Paris conference convened to discuss Libya's future.

The executive summary of the World Bank's world development report (WDR) on gender trots out one of the organisation's most familiar refrains: "Gender is smart economics." This is both misleading and unfortunate, because the data included in the report is much more nuanced. At times, it even questions the bank's usual argument that economic growth leads to gender equality and gender equality leads to growth.

Just over a decade into the 21st century, women's progress can be seen—and celebrated—across a range of fields. They hold the highest political offices from Thailand to Brazil, Costa Rica to Australia. A woman holds the top spot at the International Monetary Fund; another won the Nobel Prize in economics.

When you became secretary of state, you said your mission was to improve the quality of life for the world's women. Three years later, what's your assessment of the progress made so far? No society can thrive when half its people are left behind. We have seen what a difference it makes when women have access to education and health care, when they are free to start their own businesses or make their own decisions.

Women in Kashmir are the worst sufferers of conflict. Experts say women generally have less tolerance for trauma. Some Kashmiri women have devised their own methods of escape by often transporting themselves into the unreal world of television soap operas and others are not able to forget gruesome tragedies they witnessed. Shams Irfan reports.

In the Pacific, despite women's leadership in peace building, organizing dialogue, providing inputs to defence reviews, mediating between conflicting parties, ending violence against women and defending human rights, women's participation in peacebuilding is still a matter for debate. Women struggle to be heard and are not given sufficient recognition and resources to up-scale their work.