Peace Talks: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 for Women’s NGOs and policy makers in the Pacific.

Partner: fem’LINKPACIFIC and other women’s NGOs in the region
Country:Fiji with outreach into Bougainville, Solomon Islands and Tonga

Building on the set of 25 outcomes outlined by participants at the 2006 Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat Regional Workshop on Gender, Peace, Conflict, Peace and Security, this project aims to address the need for education and awareness raising on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), and the role of women in peacekeeping, peace building, conflict prevention and conflict mediation in both civil society organisations and Governments in the region.
UNSCR 1325 recognizes “the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peace-building, and the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.”

To date femLINKpacific has develop training materials for NGOs and policy makers on UNSCR 1325, and has been working with regional partners to identify “peace women” in the target countries and provide opportunities for these women to be heard on issues of national and regional security. These peace women have a dual role; firstly to work with their constituents to identify a platform of issues that need to be represented at a government level in relation to the impact of conflict on women, and diverse women’s perceptions on methods prevent and resolve conflict; and secondly, to be resource people that peacekeepers, civil society and governments can approach for information on the practical elements of the implementation of UNSCR 1325.

femLINKpacific created the first of their annual Policy Papers in 2008, and will produce a policy paper in 2009 based on findings in regional and national rural consultations. They will also continue to link peacewomen to regional policy development through promoting their active participation in key dialogue processes with regional leaders (i.e. the annual Forum Regional Security Council meeting).

Project Objectives

• To train a core group of key representatives of women’s NGOs in each of the four countries on UNSCR 1325.
• Translation of UNSCR 1325 into local languages in each of the four countries (where not already available)
• Creation of set of Gender Sensitive Peace and Security Indicators for use by civil society organisations and governments.
• Such indicators will enable various stakeholders to identify areas of success and challenges on the integration and implementation of UNSCR 1325.
• In conjunction with key government departments establish and develop a regional network of women peace makers whose names can be put forward by respective governments for nomination for United Nations and regional Peace Keeping missions / positions. Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat to be invited to play a key role in facilitating this.

This project is funded by AusAid.

-last updated 25/02/09

Tags: femLink, Fiji, Pacific, PNG, Safety and Security, Solomon Islands, UNSCR 1325

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Projects, Regional, Solomon Islands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.