Celebrating Feminists’ Voices, Inspiring Global Peace

In Review: WILPF Engagement at the 16th Anniversary of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

3 November 2016
WILPF International and the special delegation of women leaders from Syria, Libya and Yemen in New York. Photo credit: Marina Kumskova, WILPF PeaceWomen.
WILPF International and a special delegation of women peace leaders from Syria, Yemen, and Libya at the 16th Anniversary of UNSCR1325. Photo: WILPF/Marina Kumskova.

In October 2000, world leaders on peace and security adopted the historical Security Council Resolution 1325, which for the first time recognised women’s important role in conflict prevention through post-conflict reconstruction.

Last year there was a Global Study on UNSCR 1325 that provided the evidence base for action. One year after the global study and sixteen years after the adoption of UNSCR 1325, where are we now?

At the 16th anniversary of UNSCR 1315, WILPF worked with grassroots partners and international policymakers to call for concrete action, especially on key gap areas of conflict prevention, disarmament, and financing. We called for feminist action against militarised approaches that ensures accountability on commitments and action for meaningful accomplishments for women at the grassroots level.

WILPF Events at the 16th Anniversary of UNSCR 1325

One week before the UN Security Council WPS open debate, WILPF launched a Security Council Scorecard on Women, Peace and Security to strengthen accountability for holistic implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda. Although Security Council members have a unique responsibility for peace and security given their role, they also are some of the largest contributors to global military expenditure, which directly contributes to sexual, gender based, and other forms of violence. At the webinar launch of the Scorecard, participants shared how women are affected by arms. We called for more holistic action on the WPS agenda that strengthens the conflict prevention gap including acting on disarmament and women’s human rights.

During the week of the Security Council WPS Open Debate, WILPF hosted a delegation of women peace leaders including from Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Nigeria and engaged in a variety of events, bilateral meetings, and other engagements for concrete action.

WILPF Partners from the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region highlighted regional patterns in how gender blind institutions with militarised responses result on ongoing challenges to women’s meaningful participation in peace efforts, how the influx of arms results in dangerous conditions for women and girls, and what women civil society leaders are doing to rebuild communities and promote peace. They participated in a closed WILPF consultation, spoke at a closed round-table at the Swiss mission, held an open side event, and engaged in a variety of bilateral meetings and actions throughout the week. “Women’s experiences and impact of conflict on women are not prioritised and often misrepresented,” said WILPF Crisis Response Programme Manager Laila Alodaat. “We wish to put women’s experience at the heart of intervention strategies.”

WILPF Global Programmes Director Maria Butler and WILPF-Nigeria President Joy Onyesoh contributed to a closed workshop co-hosted by WILPF together with MenEngage, ICAN and UNDP on Masculinities and Violence in Crisis Settings. Participants explored challenges and assumptions around violent masculinities in conflict situations and action that can be taken to transform these gender norms as part of broader systems of militarism and violence. “Changing system of governance requires transforming masculinities for women’s rights and peace,” said Maria Butler.

WILPF PeaceWomen Programme Director Abigail Ruane also spoke at an open event co-hosted by WILPF together with the Missions of Australia, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom to the United Nations, as well as UN Women, and the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders on “Financing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Good Practice and Lessons Learned for Accountability and Implementation.”  The event built on WILPF’s launch of the #MoveTheMoney toolkit in September and focused on the importance of concrete action to finance the WPS agenda in order to move from commitments to accomplishments. “We spend trillions on war and pennies on peace; and of course, you get what you pay for,” Abigail Ruane, WILPF PeaceWomen Programme Director, said. “The time is now to move the money from violence and war to peace and gender justice.”

WPS Debate and Advocacy

The Security Council UNSCR 1325 16th anniversary debate took place on Tuesday 25 October 2016. WILPF monitored the debate, analysed the UN Secretary-General 2016 WPS Report, and worked with the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security to support a civil society speaker from South Sudan.

Of the 80 member state speakers this year, 46 (57.5 per cent) made new commitments — including 10 financial commitments. However, despite the focus of the WPS debate on follow up to commitments made one year after the Global Study, only 24 (41 per cent) of the 58 concrete commitments made in 2015 were followed up at this year’s debate with accounts on commitment implementation and action. Furthermore, despite  a welcome focus on women’s participation, especially around the inclusion of civil society, militarisation of the discourse was a worrying trend, with strong attention to recruiting women to armed and peacekeeping forces.

Participants and panelists of the “Financing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Good Practice and Lessons Learned for Accountability and Implementation” event. Photo: WILPF/Anna Warrington.
Participants and panelists of the “Financing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Good Practice and Lessons Learned for Accountability and Implementation” event. Photo: WILPF/Anna Warrington.

Continuing empty commitments is not enough. We need action! WILPF’s analysis shows that despite commitment at the rhetorical level, we still face a substantial accountability gap in concrete action for change.

It is critical that as we move forward, we leverage the normative support for the WPS Agenda to address the implementation gap and move from commitments to accomplishments.

Read our summary of the 2016 WPS debate>>

Share the Security Council WPS Scorecard>>

Share the #MoveTheMoney toolkit>>

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Melissa Torres

VICE-PRESIDENT

Prior to being elected Vice-President, Melissa Torres was the WILPF US International Board Member from 2015 to 2018. Melissa joined WILPF in 2011 when she was selected as a Delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women as part of the WILPF US’ Practicum in Advocacy Programme at the United Nations, which she later led. She holds a PhD in Social Work and is a professor and Global Health Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine and research lead at BCM Anti-Human Trafficking Program. Of Mexican descent and a native of the US/Mexico border, Melissa is mostly concerned with the protection of displaced Latinxs in the Americas. Her work includes training, research, and service provision with the American Red Cross, the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Centre, and refugee resettlement programs in the U.S. Some of her goals as Vice-President are to highlight intersectionality and increase diversity by fostering inclusive spaces for mentorship and leadership. She also contributes to WILPF’s emerging work on the topic of displacement and migration.

Jamila Afghani

VICE-PRESIDENT

Jamila Afghani is the President of WILPF Afghanistan which she started in 2015. She is also an active member and founder of several organisations including the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organisation (NECDO). Elected in 2018 as South Asia Regional Representative to WILPF’s International Board, WILPF benefits from Jamila’s work experience in education, migration, gender, including gender-based violence and democratic governance in post-conflict and transitional countries.

Sylvie Jacqueline Ndongmo

PRESIDENT

Sylvie Jacqueline NDONGMO is a human rights and peace leader with over 27 years experience including ten within WILPF. She has a multi-disciplinary background with a track record of multiple socio-economic development projects implemented to improve policies, practices and peace-oriented actions. Sylvie is the founder of WILPF Cameroon and was the Section’s president until 2022. She co-coordinated the African Working Group before her election as Africa Representative to WILPF’s International Board in 2018. A teacher by profession and an African Union Trainer in peace support operations, Sylvie has extensive experience advocating for the political and social rights of women in Africa and worldwide.

WILPF Afghanistan

In response to the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and its targeted attacks on civil society members, WILPF Afghanistan issued several statements calling on the international community to stand in solidarity with Afghan people and ensure that their rights be upheld, including access to aid. The Section also published 100 Untold Stories of War and Peace, a compilation of true stories that highlight the effects of war and militarisation on the region. 

IPB Congress Barcelona

WILPF Germany (+Young WILPF network), WILPF Spain and MENA Regional Representative

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Demilitarisation

WILPF uses feminist analysis to argue that militarisation is a counter-productive and ill-conceived response to establishing security in the world. The more society becomes militarised, the more violence and injustice are likely to grow locally and worldwide.

Sixteen states are believed to have supplied weapons to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2020 with the US supplying 74 % of weapons, followed by Russia. Much of this equipment was left behind by the US military and is being used to inflate Taliban’s arsenal. WILPF is calling for better oversight on arms movement, for compensating affected Afghan people and for an end to all militarised systems.

Militarised masculinity

Mobilising men and boys around feminist peace has been one way of deconstructing and redefining masculinities. WILPF shares a feminist analysis on the links between militarism, masculinities, peace and security. We explore opportunities for strengthening activists’ action to build equal partnerships among women and men for gender equality.

WILPF has been working on challenging the prevailing notion of masculinity based on men’s physical and social superiority to, and dominance of, women in Afghanistan. It recognizes that these notions are not representative of all Afghan men, contrary to the publicly prevailing notion.

Feminist peace​

In WILPF’s view, any process towards establishing peace that has not been partly designed by women remains deficient. Beyond bringing perspectives that encapsulate the views of half of the society and unlike the men only designed processes, women’s true and meaningful participation allows the situation to improve.

In Afghanistan, WILPF has been demanding that women occupy the front seats at the negotiating tables. The experience of the past 20 has shown that women’s presence produces more sustainable solutions when they are empowered and enabled to play a role.

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