Nongovernmental Sector Helps Write U.S. Plan on Women and Peace

Members of Women United of Garfield County attach "Ribbons for Peace" to a banner around the courthouse in Enid, Oklahoma, in honor of the U.N. International Day of Peace.

Washington — The Obama administration unveiled a new policy December 19 on women, peace and security, proposing a detailed action plan intended to give women everywhere a louder voice in preventing and resolving conflicts. The policy is more than 10 years in the making, and is a direct descendant of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, approved in October 2000.

The resolution was a response to appeals from nongovernmental organizations and attempts to empower the half of the population that too often had neither voice nor vote in decisions of peace and war.

“Many of us have tried to show the world that women are not just victims of war, they are agents of peace,” Clinton said December 19, speaking at Georgetown University in Washington. “And that was the wisdom behind the historic U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, which was adopted a decade ago but whose promise remains largely unfulfilled.”

Peace talks in Northern Ireland, Liberia and Nepal, Clinton said, have shown that women can be influential in the process, and will work to include human rights and justice in the agenda. “They build coalitions across ethnic and sectarian lines, and they speak up for other marginalized groups. They act as mediators and help to foster compromise,” Clinton said.

The U.S. Civil Society Working Group on Women, Peace and Security, formed in July 2010, has been influential in developing the action plan put forth by the White House December 19. Scholars and advocates for human rights and development joined the group, which is equipped with decades of experience working with women in the midst of conflict worldwide.

An expert statement released by the working group in late November proposes some grass-roots strategies on how to empower women in the peacemaking process. First, the group recommends that the United States wield its diplomatic influence to introduce more women into peacemaking processes as they begin. The document says any U.S. funding for such talks should be “contingent on women’s participation.” U.S. envoys and mediators should all learn the provisions of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, and work to include them in any such talks.

The role of women does not end with the peacemaking, according to the experts; it should extend through post-conflict planning in events such as donor conferences and U.N. Security Council sessions. Women’s civil society groups, especially those representing refugee and displaced women, should be included in these sessions, the statement said.

The needs of women must also receive greater attention when post-conflict assistance begins to flow into communities. Clinton said history has shown that relief is not distributed in an equitable way. “Women are often among the most vulnerable in crises, yet they rarely receive a proportionate share of assistance or have the chance to help set post-conflict priorities.”

The NGO recommendations on implementing this strategy offer specific advice on how to guarantee women a fair share of assistance: “Require organizations implementing U.S.-funded activities to demonstrate how they will engage women and men equally in program design and implementation.”

The NGO proposal also raises the ugly topic of gender-based violence, which it says “is endemic in crisis, conflict and post-conflict settings.” Failure to deal with such violence will delegitimize all other development and diplomatic efforts, the experts said. Clinton explained how the action plan addresses violence against women: “The United States will help build the capacity of foreign militaries, police forces and justice systems to strengthen the rule of law and ensure that protecting civilians and stopping sexual and gender-based violence in particular is a shared priority.”

“We will prioritize prevention and response to sexual violence along with other lifesaving humanitarian assistance, and help build critical services such as food distribution, emergency education, cash-for-work programs and health centers around women and their needs, including reproductive and maternal health care,” Clinton said.

The Working Group on Women, Peace and Security concluded with the recommendation that agencies and employees throughout the U.S. government develop the knowledge and skills to implement the action plan, in conjunction with the nongovernmental sector.

Clinton said the new policies are already being implemented in the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other agencies.