Implementation

Women have often led the call for peace in conflict-torn societies. Let us recall the example of Liberia, whose grass-roots women's organizations had a direct and visible impact on peace negotiations and post-conflict reconstruction efforts. The activism of those groups on behalf of the welfare of the average citizen helped to break the impasse produced by leaders of warring factions in the struggle for political dominance.

We join others in the call for more systematic United Nations reporting on women's participation and inclusion in peacebuilding and planning, and we request the Secretary-General to continue to appoint gender advisers to United Nations missions and to develop a set of indicators to track implementation of resolutions 1325 (2000) and 1889 (2009).

The United Nations must do all it can to keep the issue of women and peace and security in the spotlight, especially as we look to the tenth anniversary of resolution 1325 (2000) and the creation of a composite gender entity, an entity that the United States strongly supports.

The Secretary-General rightly notes that Member States should ensure that women participate in decision-making. He adds that the international community should pursue a strategy to ensure women's participation in all peace processes, including by providing appropriate training and capacity-building programmes towards that end.

The Secretary-General emphasizes that we need to increase the number of women who serve as mediators, special representatives, special envoys and peacekeepers around the world. My Government commends the Secretary-General for his leadership and his efforts to increase the number of women in senior United Nations positions. We hope that these appointments will continue to increase.

In his recent report (S/2009/465), the Secretary- General notes that while much has been done in response to resolution 1325 (2000) in the nine years since its adoption, armed conflict continues to have a devastating impact on women and girls, all too often leaving them wounded, traumatized, sexually assaulted, socially and economically marginalized or without political power.

Women's involvement is necessary to ensure the legitimacy of the decision-making process, to encourage a broad base of participation, to make sustainable peace and development possible and to protect women and girls. The implementation of resolution 1325 (2000), as well as of subsequent resolutions on women and peace and security, is a necessary tool for promoting the involvement of women.

We need to ensure the promotion and enjoyment of human rights for all people, and in particular women and girls living in situations of conflict. Access to education, health and other humanitarian assistance is a basic human right; we thus strongly condemn those parties to conflict who destroy schools, health facilities and humanitarian supplies, and those who prevent girls' and women's access to education.

The United Nations must set an example in its advocacy of women's participation by the appointment of more women to senior leadership positions in the Organization, including in areas dealing with conflict resolution and peacebuilding. At the grass-roots level, we need to address the causes of the lack of women's participation in peace processes, and to empower women's groups socially, politically and economically.

We must see linkages across the system and fit responses to the gaps which are identified. The composite United Nations gender entity will also help achieve that goal. In its resolution 63/311, adopted last month, the General Assembly gave strong support to the establishment of the entity. We hope that that will now be taken forward expeditiously.