Participation

The Participation theme focuses on women’s representation and participation in peace processes, electoral process – as both the candidate and voter – UN decision-making positions, and in the broader social-political sphere.

The Security Council acknowledges the need for strategies to increase women’s participation in all UN missions and appointments to high-level positions in SCR 1325(OP3) and 1889(OP4) and further emphasises the need for women’s participation in peacebuilding processes (1889). 

Specifically, it calls for the mobilisation of resources for advancing gender equality and empowering women (OP14), reporting on the progress of women’s participation in UN missions (OP18), equal access to education for women and girls in post-conflict societies (OP11), and the increase of women’s participation in political and economic decision-making (OP15). Until this language translates into action, the potential for women’s full and equal contribution to international peace and security will remain unrealized.

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SIERRA LEONE: A Sierra Leonean Named to Sexual Violence in Conflict Post

Zainab Hawa Bangura, the minister of health and sanitation in Sierra Leone, a country that not long ago rose from a brutal civil war, will take over in September as the United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict.

PAKISTAN: Building a Bridge

Peace building efforts between India and Pakistan are not for bilateral talks at the diplomatic level alone. People-to-people contact, as they have been saying, is vital.

KENYA: Law Gives Women Powers to Contest Elections

Kenyan's new constitution is not only a historic landmark for Kenya, but a milestone in the East African women's rights movement.

It has opened the widest space for women's participation in public decision making, more so through Article 27, Kenya has joined its sister countries of East Africa in the use of constitutional quotas to advance women's political participation.

AFRICA: African Civil Society Demands to Play Key Role in Keeping Violence at Bay

With peace agreements ending wars across Africa, local communities are embarking on rebuilding and revival. The course is daunting: not only to generate productive livelihoods in difficult economic times, but also to avoid new eruptions of violence.

NEPAL: Implementing Locally – Inspiring Globally: 1325 Localization in Nepal

GNWP is back in Nepal for part two of its Localization and United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 program, first instigated here in Nepal, in June 2011

OCEANIA: Pacific Nations Women Promised a Better Deal

Leaders of 15 Pacific Island nations have pledged to remove barriers to women's economic empowerment, end violence against women and pave the way for their increased political representation, at the conclusion of the 43rd Pacific Islands Forum in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, last week. The meeting was also attended by the Executive Director of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet.

SOMALIA: Marginalizing Women in Somali Politics

Somalia has recently selected its parliament on Somali soil for the first time since the civil war of the late 1980s. This is a significant achievement since regional power brokers such as Ethiopia and Kenya, with the financial and logistical backing of the European Union, the United States and the United Nations, concocted Somali governments in neighbouring countries.

INTERNATIONAL: As Gender Data Analysis Sharpens More Global Women Can Be Empowered

Women make enormous contributions to their families and their communities, and there is compelling evidence that women jumpstart and then drive economic growth around the world,” said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: Young Women Find Voices-and Inner Leadership-in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Conversations have taken a livelier turn at dinner tables across Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), according to one young Bosnian woman.

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