Participation

Gaspard, the taxi driver taking me back to my hotel after dinner, is 27. So he was just a boy in 1994.

You find yourself asking everyone here in Rwanda their age – and then doing a quick sum, to work out how old they would have been 20 years ago.

Former President Mary Robinson has said the involvement of women is central to achieving peace in parts of the world where there is conflict.

She was speaking at the start of a two-day symposium in Galway, where delegates will discuss efforts to resolve the 20-year conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Almost five million people have been killed over the last two decades.

Justice and peace are not possible without the involvement and participation of women. To accomplish this vision the United Nations Security Council resolution (UNSCR) 1325 can be an important negotiation tool for religious women's on-going work for conflict resolution and peace-building around the world.

Time and again, we hear horrific accounts of violence perpetrated against women in conflicts around the world. But this violence is not inevitable. The United States is committed to addressing this important issue diplomatically and financially -- and it is not alone.

Although Nepal met the objective of increased women´s participation in the ongoing peace building and state restructuring process -- of at least 33 percent -- meaningful participation of women in the process has yet to be achieved, a report claimed.

The report said Myanmar has no female township administrators and just 0.11 percent of ward and village-tract administrators are women.

The study is part of a series of papers on sub-national government funded by the Asia Foundation and the Myanmar Development Resource Institute's Centre for Economic and Social Development (MDRI CESD).

I sat in the glittery closing plenary of last week's global summit to end sexual violence in conflict in London, tired, saddened and outraged. I listened, together with activists, governments and survivors, to the words of Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague. He played to the crowd.

The gender audit in peace building programme conducted in 10 districts from March-May 2014 states that the victims of decade-long insurgency are the least informed people about National Action Plan 1325.

The research states that out of 45 survivors/victims who were interviewed, only 17 were informed about t National Action Plan 1325 and that the key victims were least informed about it.

Although Nepal met the objective of increased women´s participation in the ongoing peace building and state restructuring process -- of at least 33 percent -- meaningful participation of women in the process has yet to be achieved, a report claimed.

40 participants from Fiji, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, RMI, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu will graduate from the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre's Regional Training Program 6pm tomorrow Thursday, 19 June 2014 at the Southern Cross Hotel Conference Room in Suva.