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#WomenLead2030: Join Our Social Media Campaign For The 2018 High Level Political Forum

The 2018 High Level Political Forum, an annual accountability mechanism for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), will be hosted at the UN Headquarters in New York from Monday, 9 July, to Wednesday, 18 July 2018.

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  • 3 min
WILPF International Secretariat
2 July 2018

The 2018 High Level Political Forum (HLPF2018), an annual accountability mechanism for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), will be hosted at the UN Headquarters in New York from Monday, 9 July, to Wednesday, 18 July 2018.

This year, the forum will be reviewing SDG implementation, with a specific attention given to water and sanitation (Goal 6), sustainable energy (Goal 7), sustainable cities (Goal 11), consumption and production (Goal 12), the protection of terrestrial ecosystems (Goal 15) and sustainable development on partnership for the goals (Goal 17). The theme will be “Transformation towards sustainable and resilient societies”.

WILPF & the Sustainable Development Agenda #WOMENLEAD2030 SDG logo (a circle of with several colours) with WILPF's logo at its center

As part of WILPF’s work to improve multilateral action for conflict prevention, gender equality and peace, our Women, Peace and Security Programme will monitor the forum and work with our coalition the Women’s Major Group around gender and conflict issues. Our main focus this year will be on Goal 17 regarding means of implementation and accountability.

To support our action, today we are launching a social media campaign aimed at mobilising the recognition of Member States, the UN and the international community of local women’s important work and strengthening action that implements the SDGs in a way that works for women in conflict situations.

What Is WILPF’s SDG Social Media Campaign About?

Each day, women peace activists and women human rights defenders around the world contribute – directly and indirectly – to ensure sustainable development across all SDGs, basing their actions on disarmament, women’s meaningful participation, and human rights.

In Colombia, more than 100 provisions on gender, including zero tolerance on sexual and gender- based violence, were integrated into the peace agreement based on women civil society’s recommendations.

In Nigeria, women are mobilising to prevent and address violence both around and outside of elections, as well as build networks that support women’s political participation.

In Sweden, civil society has utilised the SDG commitment to promoting policy coherence to strengthen advocacy on restricting arms exports to countries that discriminate against women and addressing immigration and asylum policy.

Key Challenge: Securitising Development

However, our analysis and the work of our partners and sections, including WILPF Sweden and the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network, also demonstrates that the SDGs are not always addressed from a conflict and/or a gender lens. Gender and peace financing remain far from a reality, with militarisation and arms proliferation remain the challenges that have not been taken into consideration by the world’s leaders.

In addition, some states have taken #MoveTheMoney in the wrong direction: As Anna Möller-Loswick of SaferWorld has recently shared, the 2016 expansion of OECD-DAC aid “risks diverting aid more towards a military agenda for fighting wars rather than non-violent, preventative and developmental approaches.” Meanwhile, as she also notes, a third of all US foreign aid in 2015 went to military aid and security assistance.

This approach is not sustainable. The UN Secretary General’s focus on prevention recognises that sustaining peace requires a pivot away from short term crisis response and toward long term prevention. This requires supporting local women’s work for nonviolence and justice, and building social systems that realise women’s political participation and economic, social, and cultural rights.

17 Partnerships for the Goal A photo of a group of women smiling Quote: The conditions attached to the provision of funding from IFIs (SDG 14, 4) have significant implications on women, including by sweeping spending cuts on areas such as health, education and social services. WILPF, Alternative Youth Centre Center for Social and Labour Research, Centre of the Future Child, Smile East Donbas, Regional Development Agency, Gender Dnipro, Theatre for Dialogue

Our Demands: What do we want?

WILPF believes the SDGs have the potential to be an important tool for addressing conflict prevention gaps and moving from political economies of war to political economies of peace and gender justice. This requires implementation through a human rights framework that addresses other obligations, including on disarmament, women’s human rights and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.

However, current approaches are moving in the wrong direction.

One year from now, in 2019, the High Level Political Forum will review SDG 16 on Peaceful societies. One year ahead of this review, it is important that governments recognise that military aid is not the answer to SDG 16.

If the SDGs are going to work for women in conflict, they must act as a lever to increase investment in gender equality and peace, rather than rationalising further security investments in the name of development. And they must push transformative, rather than incremental action:

  • This includes shifting the balance of power in the financial architecture to address systemic issues and create the conditions to respect, protect and fulfill human rights.
  • This requires Member States to recognise their extra-territorial obligations, including around regulating arms that risk gender-based violence.
  • This requires strengthening policy coherence, consistent with both SDG 5 and 16 as well as UNSCR 1325 and the Arms Trade Treaty
  • This is based on reorienting peace work around local women’s experiences and voices for justice and rights.

Goals can only be successful if structural barriers, including gendered inequalities, are addressed for every person everywhere, including in conflict areas.

Key Messages

The 2030 Agenda is a critical opportunity. A universal agenda means SDGs that work for women and girls in conflict. This requires:

  • Women’s meaningful participation: Political and financial support for national, regional and global civil society engagement mechanisms to ensure local women’s meaningful participation for justice with impact (consistent with Rio Principle 10);
  • Extra-territorial accountability: National reporting and action to eliminate SGBV (SDG 5.2) due to arms (16.4) (consistent with the Arms Trade Treaty gender criterion);
  • Peace financing: National reporting on military versus social expenditure (SDG 17.2) and action to #MoveTheMoney from war to gender equality (consistent with Beijing Platform (E2) and Agenda 21 (22.16) (rather than the opposite direction);
  • Enabling environment: International financial architecture that creates the conditions to respect, protect and fulfill human rights by addressing systemic issues, including gender inequality and arms proliferation.

How can you support WILPF’s SDG social media campaign?

We have developed 17 visuals for you to use on social media to raise awareness: one for each SDG. Each visual highlights some of our many local WILPF and partner actions. We will be posting 1-2 visuals per day during the High Level Political Forum (9-18 July) and we hope you will join us!

  • Download the visuals you wish to share below;
  • Use our WILPF and the SDGs image as your Facebook and Twitter profile picture during the campaign
  • Share visuals on your social media channels; and
  • Tag WILPF and our Women, Peace and Security Programme (Twitter: @WILPF and @Peace_Women; Facebook: @WILPF and @WILPFPeaceWomen; Instagram: @wilpf).
  • Use hashtags: #WomenLead2030; #MoveTheMoney

Find #WomenLead2030 Social Media Toolkit here>>

Read more about WILPF’s #WomenLead2030 Campaign here>>

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WILPF International Secretariat

WILPF International Secretariat, with offices in Geneva and New York, liaises with the International Board and the National Sections and Groups for the implementation of WILPF International Programme, resolutions and policies as adopted by the International Congress. Under the direction of the Secretary-General, the Secretariat also provides support in areas of advocacy, communications, and financial operations.

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Berit Aasen

Europe Alternate Regional Representative

Berit Aasen is a sociologist by training and has worked at the OsloMet Metropolitan University on Oslo. She has 40 years of experience in research and consultancy in development studies, including women, peace, and security, and in later years in asylum and refugee studies. Berit Aasen joined WILPF Norway five years ago. She is an alternate member of the National Board of WILPF Norway, and representing WILPF Norway in the UN Association of Norway, the Norwegian 1325 network and the Norwegian Women’s Lobby. Berit Aasen has been active in the WILPF European Liaison group and is committed to strengthening WILPF sections and membership both in Europe and relations across continents.

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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. 

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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.