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Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my great pleasure being here in such distinguished company at the International Peace Institute. Thank you very much, Ambassador Cardi, for hosting this event and thank you to the IPI for arranging this event.
Civil society deserves much credit for taking the lead and driving the policy agenda for women, peace and security forward and for keeping governments, public institutions and international organizations accountable for implementing this agenda. Still, we cannot move this agenda one inch without committed leadership within our institutions.
This is why, I with such great appreciation, have been listening to General Palomeros and Major General Foster. Both these men have key roles in defining how the UN and NATO’s peacekeeping and crisis management efforts are to be taken forward, and I appreciate your commitment and leadership.
Leadership is indeed key. And I am proud to represent a Secretary General that was recently honored with Hillary Clinton’s award for his leadership advancing women in peace and security.
NATO continue to develop the Women, Peace and Security agenda as an important policy priority for our organization. We have a policy, and we have an action plan. Although we have a way to go – we are making progress.
To ensure institutional lessons learned for the Alliance we have recently conducted a review of our implementation of UNSCR 1325 in NATO led operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan. And what have we learnt from that review?
We have learned that the gender dimension needs to be an integral part of our processes analyzing, monitoring, planning and executing operations and. This means that:
- we need to understand the social role of men and women in the specific context where we operate;
- we need to understand how a conflict may affect men and women differently;
- We need to understand, and stop overlooking, the specific security needs and interest of women.
We need to understand all of this and then be able to plan accordingly and respond adequately.
Further, we have learned that having more female soldiers deployed in operations improves our ability to conduct operations more effectively.
We have learned that having expertise on gender issues – Gender Advisers – deployed in operations will enable the commanders to understand better the gender dimension it the communities. We have also learned, however, that to fully benefit from that function, Gender Advisers need to have the right competences, placed centrally in the organization close to the commander and their role must be clearly defined and understood.
We have learned that engaging with women leaders and activists in the areas of operations leads to greater awareness and to better dialogue and understanding between NATO forces and the local community.
Last, but not least, we have learned that training, education and exercises are key tools. Both men and women within our institutions need to acquire basic knowledge and a conceptual understanding of gender and security. Both men and women within our institutions need to understand gender in the context where they operate. I am therefor very pleased that NATO, through ACT, continues to strengthen its training initiatives on gender.
So there is a lot to learn and a lot remains to be done. In fact, many would say that the progress in implementing UNSCR 1325 and related Resolutions is way too slow.
From my perspective there are three key challenges:
- Lack of awareness
- Lack of institutionalization
- Lack of national delivery
And strategic patience and a lot of stamina may be required - I am afraid - in order to continue to move this agenda forward.
There is still lack of awareness and understanding of basic concepts on gender and why it is so important to include women in decision making, internally in NATO there is a lack of knowledge about our policies, action plan and directives. A committed leadership and good use of education, training and exercises are important if we are to continue to raise awareness and build competences.
Women’s situation and role in peace and conflict still rests in the margins of the agendas on international peace and security. But these are not marginal issues – these are core issues if we are going to make headway solving the security challenges of today. We need to deepen our commitment and take a more systematic approach to developing targets, monitoring implementation, measuring results and reporting back to decision-makers. As a follow-up of the review, NATO is taking steps to ensure that our policy on women, peace and security indeed forms an integral part of our everyday business and activities.
Nations have the primary responsibility for implementing UNSCR 1325 and related Resolutions. The provision of competent troops, experts on gender, women in the armed forces, and female candidates for leading positions in operations depends entirely on national decisions. NATO cannot prescribe national defence and security policies – or HR policies, but what we can do - and what we are doing - is to facilitate exchanges of best practices.
Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen,
We know that women are often harder hit than men by conflict. One phenomenon that possibly has been on the rise in the last 20 years is the use of conflict-related sexual and gender based violence. This also affects men. Conflict-related sexual violence has detrimental impacts on the individuals and the very fabric of societies – and is a threat to peace and security. And we need to develop our policies and toolboxes preventing this and responding adequately in crisis situations.
But the key to make real progress is to see women as actors – not only victims. We will do ourselves and our societies a great disservice, if women cannot participate - at equate footing with men – around the table when matters relating to peace and security are being decided on and in executing these decisions.
So let’s be smart about how we do our defence and security business, let’s understand our security environment from a gender perspective and let’s benefit from the resources and the talents of women.
The Women, Peace and Security agenda as decided by the UN Security Council is broad and complex. Its implementation requires concerted actions from many actors. NATO and the UN as international governmental organizations have significant contributions to make.
Let’s also be smart about cooperation. Within our organizations’ roles and responsibilities we should work together, we should continue to learn from each other, we should continue to develop training tools together, we should work together identifying targeted and unified causes of action.
Thank you for your attention.