3 June 2007
NATO Meeting Report
By Audery Roberts
AFGHAN WOMEN DEMAND THAT A ‘WOMEN DIMENSION’ IS INCORPORATED INTO NATO SECURITY POLICY
On 3 June 2007, NATO representatives and Afghan women parliamentarians and representatives from civil society met in mutual recognition of the important role that both Afghan women and NATO must play in building sustainable peace and security in Afghanistan.
This meeting was a follow-up to the Inclusive Security: A Road Map for Afghanistan workshop in Brussels, held from 24 February to 2 March 2007, which brought together high level military and civilian NATO personnel and Afghan women to recognize and promote the critical role women play in security and building democracy.
The caucus of Afghan women called for this follow-up meeting in order to develop a relationship with NATO inside Afghanistan, to demand inclusion in consultation processes in order to work together towards peace and to demand that NATO take the well-being of women into consideration at all levels of security activities, both strategic and operational.
The NATO representatives suggested utilizing PRTs to incorporate a gender policy into NATO’s mandate in Afghanistan. The mission of PRTs, or Provincial Reconstruction Teams, is to bring both security and development in the provinces of Afghanistan. The women dimension is not adequately reflected in PRTs planning and operations. Jointly, NATO and Afghan women can try to make PRTs more aware of the importance of contacting women’s organizations and bringing the women dimension to the planning programs.
At the operational level, PRTs will attempt to fulfill this new role through the Japanese Program for NGOs, which funds small scale projects for NGOs and communities for up to $80,000 per project and which NATO implements. PRTs will be advised to actively work with women’s organizations in developing these small-scale projects.
At the strategic level, at the PRT Steering Committee in Kabul on 7 June, NATO will ask for explicit gender policies from each PRT. PRTs have to learn to think in terms of gender and gender equality. This avenue offers a possibility to work for women’s equality and rights within the context of NATO. This is a very far-reaching achievement on the part of Afghan women seeking to form an enduring relationship with NATO and it is proof that their voices are being heard - in part.
NATO focuses on military activities and planning. Their priority is to bring security to Afghanistan. Afghan women demand that security have a women dimension. Afghan women are not asking for more short-term projects. They want security - inclusive security. Although the priorities of Afghan women, Afghan people and NATO seem to be one and the same, the Afghan people still do not know exactly what NATO is doing in Afghanistan.
Afghan women represent at least one half of the population of Afghanistan. They want to be informed of what NATO is doing for the security of Afghan people, particularly Afghan women. They demand a voice in security and development. A voice in development is not enough. Development is only sustainable with security. In addition to having NATO working for Afghan women’s rights, Afghan women want to work with NATO for peace and security in Afghanistan.
We think that your PRT commanders should not develop a gender policy alone. We propose organizing a round table with the Ministry of Women's Affairs, your PRT commanders, AWN, and possibly GTZ and a few other relevant actors we can discuss at a later date, to discuss exactly how the PRTs should go about incorporating gender policy into their strategy and operations. This cooperation, in addition to cooperation with community-based organizations, is imperative to the success of the PRTs efficiently incorporating gender policy into their strategy
The NATO-Afghan women partnership will continue to be strengthened as each side continues to understand the interests and expectations of the other.