Implementation

Our national plan recognizes the specific impacts of contemporary wars on the lives of women and addresses the efforts to prevent, combat and mitigate these impacts.

Furthermore, our national action plan emphasizes that women and girls are relevant and capable actors of change and development, and is based on the conviction that, first, it is critical that we overcome the traditional perspective of women and girls as being exclusively vulnerable victims in need of protection, and that, secondly, it is thus essential to implement measures that guarantee that this perspective will be taken into consideration

Finally, I wish to say that the Portuguese Government interprets this resolution as extending beyond armed conflicts and humanitarian aid to include the promotion of policy coherence at the national level concerning issues such as disarmament and weapons control, public security and the elimination of gender-based violence.

Allow me briefly to highlight five main objectives of our plan.

We are currently conducting field consultations for a National Action Plan on Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and 1820 (2008) in various regions of the Philippines. These consultations will culminate in a national consultation in Manila on 19 October 2009.

The role of women in matters of peace and security is particularly significant to the Philippines. It was under the leadership of our recently departed President Corazon Aquino, a woman and a housewife, that the Philippines emerged from a long dictatorship. She was a standard bearer for those who suffered under tyranny, and, having survived, became a symbol of strength and hope.

My delegation welcomes the resolution that was just adopted by the Council. We are encouraged by, among other things, the efforts to improve the resource allocations for gender issues within the United Nations by enhancing the monitoring of spending for gender- related activities, similar to the system pioneered by the United Nations Development Programme.

We therefore welcome resolution 1888 (2009), which the Council adopted last week, as well as resolution 1889 (2009), which was adopted today and which the Netherlands would have wished to sponsor. That is because those resolutions give women more of a voice in these matters — for example, through the country reports to the Security Council.

Let me end by underlining that our discussion today forms part of the wider debate on gender issues and should also be seen in the light of the decision by the General Assembly to establish a United Nations composite gender entity (see General Assembly resolution 63/311). We look forward to an early proposal on the details of that entity, including regarding its cooperation with the relevant advisers and special representatives.

As far as our bilateral cooperation with other countries is concerned, let me give the Council two examples. Burundi and the Netherlands collaborate in the integration of elements of resolution 1325 (2000) into the ethics training course for Burundi's uniformed services.