WUNRN
Letter to World Leaders, Drafted by NGO Working Group on Women, Peace & Security – Request for Sign-On by Friday, 10 April 2015.
Send Sign-On to Louise Allen, NGO Working Group on WPS - lallen@womenpeacesecurity.org
Ahead of October’s High Level Review and 15th
Anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the NGO Working Group on
Women, Peace and Security, along with its partners, has prepared an Open Letter
that we are hoping civil society organizations around the world that work on
the WPS agenda will consider signing on. The letter will be sent to all Member
States and UN Leadership later this month. We will send everyone that is
signing on a final copy with all the names of the endorsing organizations and
request they also send it onto their relevant government representatives in
capital where relevant.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear World Leaders:
As you prepare to mark the 15th Anniversary of
the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution (SCR) 1325 (2000) and the
establishment of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, we call on you,
all UN Member States and agencies, to recommit to the principles and
transformative potential of Women, Peace and Security and develop effective and
sustained implementation strategies.
Despite the repeated
commitments, the WPS agenda is far from being comprehensively implemented in
policy and practice. To achieve effective and sustainable mechanisms of
preventing and resolving conflict, UN Member States and agencies must take
concrete action in terms of: women’s meaningful participation in all peace and
security processes; national and regional implementation of WPS obligations;
delivering funding; implementing the prevention pillar; ensuring
accountability; and leading by example.
Women’s participation
The equal and full
participation of women in all efforts to create international peace and
security, and the protection and respect for their human rights, are imperative
to prevent or resolve conflicts and build lasting peace. The exclusion of women
and the lack of gender analysis lead to a failure to adequately address the
full drivers of conflict, threatening the sustainability of agreements and
forcing women to have to fight even harder for representation and justice.
We call on Member States and
the UN to: establish formal consultative forums with civil society and
incentives for parties in all conflicts to include women and gender experts in
all negotiation teams; fund the attendance of women civil society at
international and regional peace and security meetings including donor
conferences; and increase the recruitment, retention, and
professionalization of women across all justice and security sectors.
National and regional
implementation
The WPS agenda requires full
integration within the governing structures and programs of all Member States
and regional bodies. This necessitates a commitment to the development,
implementation, and review of existing national and regional gender strategies
including National Action Plans (NAPs) and Regional Action Plans (RAPs). Such
strategies should: increase coordination and mobilization of
inter-agency decision makers and resources; institutionalize a civil
society engagement process; include the development of strong,
results-based monitoring and evaluation mechanisms with clear indicators and
timeframes; dedicate specific funding for implementation; comply with
international human rights and humanitarian law standards; and commit to
gender sensitive laws, policies, practices and institutions. Member States are
also encouraged to hold WPS parliamentary debates before the 1325 High Level
Review that demonstrate cross-party support for the agenda, provide an update
on gender strategies and commit to regular engagement with civil society.
Delivering funding
Increased political support
must be matched with greater and more sustained funding for the WPS agenda.
Women must have equal access to direct funding as well to resource allocation
in decision-making processes.
Member States must: pledge multi-year
large-scale financial support for WPS including programs and for civil society
organizations at national, provincial and local levels; ensure core
funding within the UN for gender and WPS experts in missions and UN
Headquarters (UNHQ); and reduce military spending and redirect this
expenditure as called for in the Beijing Platform for Action, which links
gender equality and the call for the control of excessive arms spending.
Implementing the prevention
pillar
Conflict prevention lies at the
core of the WPS agenda, yet too often is not considered with the same level of
urgency as conflict resolution and post-conflict rebuilding. The full
implementation of SCR 1325 and subsequent WPS resolutions, the promotion of the
Beijing Platform for Action, and adherence to the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other international
human rights standards provide the roadmap for the prevention of armed conflict
and the integration of gender equality across all peace and security efforts.
Member States and the UN must: address
the root causes of violence; promote gender equality and invest in
women’s human rights, economic empowerment, education and civil society; call
on States to stop exporting arms where there is a substantial risk they
will be used to commit serious violations of human rights; ratify and implement
the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and CEDAW without reservations; support women’s
leadership as well as women’s voices and perspectives in efforts to combat,
reduce and prevent terrorism and violent extremism; and ensure WPS
recommendations are integrated into all multilateral review processes including
the Peace Operations Review, Review of the Peacebuilding Architecture, World
Humanitarian Summit, Third International Conference on Financing for
Development, and the post-2015 development agenda, including the sustainable
development goals.
Ensuring accountability
Accountability must be insisted
upon for atrocities and human rights violations including for sexual and
gender-based violence and civilian casualties committed by all non-state armed
groups, security forces including UN mandated troops, and contractors. Sexual
exploitation and abuse (SEA) must be urgently tackled as the perpetrators often
enjoy complete immunity.
Member States and the UN must: ensure
all investigations and prosecutions are survivor centered and conducted in
accordance with international standards; mandate pre-deployment training
and vetting of all personnel; and recruit and train all Women
Protection Advisors (WPA), prioritizing the recruitment of WPAs with previous
experience in gender-based violence response.
Leading by example
The highest echelons of UN
leadership, within the Secretariat, specialized agencies, programs and funds,
as well as peacekeeping and political missions, must be directly responsible
and accountable to ensure more consistent and systematic attention, action and
follow-up on WPS. In order to advance these efforts, Member States and the
entire UN system must support a strong UN structure to deliver on WPS
over the next decade with gender expertise built into operational and
policy-making entities, field missions, inter-agency initiatives and groups,
and in technical expert rosters.
These actors must also ensure
those entrusted with the office of Secretary-General, as well as all
members of the Senior Management Group, Special envoys and representatives, and
Senior Mediators have a responsibility in their respective fields to advance a
gender perspective and women’s participation.
It is equally important that
the Security Council, as the UN body responsible for maintaining international
peace and security, leads by example and address its current lack of
consistency in implementing the WPS agenda. The Security Council must: ensure
WPS is considered as a cross-cutting issue across all of its work by
including specific provisions related to women’s rights and women’s
participation in all mandates and requesting information and recommendations on
issues related to WPS from missions in reports and briefings; call for
gender-sensitive conflict analyses, which identify not only the differentiated
impact of conflict on women, girls, men and boys, but also barriers to women’s participation
in political, electoral and transitional justice processes, security sectors,
and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, to be at the basis of
planning and reporting in all missions both internally and externally; and institutionalize
briefings by civil society, the Executive Director of UN Women and the
Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict
during meetings on both country-specific and thematic agenda items.
In October, we expect more than
a ceremony. We need real action, political will and follow through.
Yours Sincerely,