Implementation

Subregionally, gender equality and the empowerment of women are among the founding principles of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and are enshrined in the SADC Treaty. We have been greatly honoured by the leadership and important contribution of women in recent peace processes and negotiations in our region.

South Africa continues to support the work of the United Nations and of the African Union in promoting the equal participation and full involvement of women in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, as well as in protecting women and girls against sexual violence.

The basis for this approach is to ensure genuine gender equality. Women can stand to make a more substantial contribution to all aspects of preventing and settling conflict. Moreover, there is a need to devote greater attention to mainstreaming the gender component into the poverty reduction and equality work of the United Nations, poverty and inequality being the main sources of conflict.

The third point concerns a deficit in post-conflict funding for women's needs. As stated in the concept paper, UNIFEM's review of almost 17,000 projects in consolidated and flash appeals for 23 post-conflict countries over three years indicates that less than 3 per cent of projects submitted for funding explicitly target gender issues.

The Republic of Korea urges Member States and the Untied Nations to take more vigorous initiatives to ensure that women are engaged in all levels of decision-making. In that regard, we commend Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's response to the call in resolution 1325 (2000) to increase the number of women in senior positions within the United Nations, especially in peacekeeping operations.

One area in which United Nations entities can immediately do more is the utilization of quick-impact projects. These are intended to meet urgent community needs in post-conflict areas but are generally underimplemented in many mission stationing fields, not to mention the fact that the gender perspective is rarely integrated into those projects under implementation.

My delegation believes that the effective implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) largely depends on the overall capacity of the United Nations system to pursue gender equality and women's empowerment. In that regard, strengthening the gender architecture is a key element.

As the Secretary-General's report states, there has been progress in some areas of the implementation of the resolution over the past year. For example, major strides have been made in developing national action plans.

Portugal reaffirms its commitment to the full implementation of resolution 1325 (2000). We adopted last August our national plan of action to contribute to the implementation of that document at the national, regional and international policy levels.

Our national plan thus embodies Portugal's concern over the vulnerability of women and girls in post-conflict situations, together with our national commitment to developing measures to answer the needs of women in these situations.