On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, the EU and the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU organized on 9 September a High Level event in Brussels on “The 10th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325: Ensuring women’s participation in peace and security”.
The event was co-hosted by Steven Vanackere, Belgian Foreign Minister and Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Inés Alberdi, Executive Director of UNIFEM (part of UN Women) participated as speaker in the first panel discussion on Ensuring Women’s Participation in Peacekeeping. Ms. Alberdi highlighted some of the initiatives that UNIFEM (part of UN Women) has recently undertaken, namely the development of 1325 Global Indicators, the organization of UN Open Days and the compilation along with DPKO of the Analytical Inventory of Peacekeeping.
The conference was addressed by keynote speakers Rachel Mayanja, UN Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women and Margot Wallström, Special Representative to the UN Secretary-General on sexual violence in armed conflict, as well as other leading figures including Alain Leroy, head of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate in 2003.
Speakers and participants shared the recent, ongoing and upcoming initiatives and commitments in the area of women, peace and security towards the 10th anniversary and beyond and recognized the very slow improvement in women’s participation in peacekeeping and peacebuilding. They all agreed both on the need to increase efforts to accelerate UNSCR 1325 implementation and on the critical momentum of this years’ anniversary to boost the 1325 agenda.
Links:
– Secretary-General’s message to Conference on "Ensuring Women’s Participation in Peace and Security" [Delivered by Rachel Mayanja, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women] : http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=4756
– Inés Alberdi speech at the High level conference
