Participation

Now, turning to the report of the Secretary General on women's participation in peacebuilding (S/2010/466), the Movement reiterates its view that it is women and girls who suffer the most as victims of conflict and benefit the least from the dividends of the peace process.

A coordinated and coherent approach is needed in order to ensure women's full participation in all peacebuilding efforts.

Austria therefore fully supports the SG's Action Plan for Gender-Responsive Peacebuilding with its seven commitments and calls upon the Secretariat and other relevant bodies and agencies to translate these commitments into concrete programs, ensuring that the peacebuilding priorities, as identified by the SG in his 2009 report, are met in a gender-responsive way to ensure women's full participation.

The second strand of work under consideration today is the recently released report of the Secretary- General on women's participation in peacebuilding (S/2010/466). Not only must women's rights be protected in conflict-related situations; women must also be able to fully and effectively participate in all aspects of conflict prevention, resolution and peacebuilding activities if we are to build a durable peace.

Women account for more than half of the world's population. Families cannot be
homes without women playing a key role in maintaining and nurturing them.
Societies cannot be peaceful communities without the vital participation of
women. My Delegation commends the measures the United Nations has
undertaken over the past years in promoting the role of women in peace and

With women having served in the war time as generals and peace negotiators,
Viet Nam now ranks 3 " in Asia-Pacific in terms of the female ratio in the
Parliament membership, and has always had: for over two decades, a female
Vice-president of State and several female Ministers. In every State or public
institution there is a women affairs cornmiitee that oversees and promotes

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to address the Council on the issue of women, peace, and
security. The United States reiterates its commitment to working with others in the UN to prevent
the use of sexual violence as a tactic of warfare and to ensure the full participation of women in
peace processes and at all decision-making levels of the United Nations. Today I would like to
make two points.

At the same time however, we recognize that women continue to be underrepresented in peace
negotiations. As was mentioned by Ms. Taylor, according to a UNIFEM study which was released
last night: only 2.7% of signatories of 15 agreements they reviewed were women. Where
information on negotiations was available, there were no female lead negotiators; and women's

There is a pressing need for capable and talented personnel to fill these staffing
and leadership positions. Against this backdrop, women appear to be a largely
untapped resource. We hope that this issue will be addressed within the
Secretary-General's report on post-conflict peacesbuilding that was requested at
the May debate.

May I join others in thanking the Presidency for holding this open debate on a very
important issue. Women's role in helping to break the conflict cycle is multi-faceted. Legitimate
conflict resolution and peacebuilding needs a fully inclusive process. Most
importantly however, women's full participation is a question of effectiveness.
Women bring important skills and perspectives to the substance of negotiations