''Ensuring Women’s participation in Peace and Security''

Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all let me say how grateful I am to be here on behalf of the NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

I heard what Monsieur Leroy just said about the impressive activities conducted by the United Nations in support of peace and security, in particular peacekeeping operations which is the subject we are discussing today.

Although I am on his side, it is fair for me to say that NATO’s numbers are not less impressive, they probably are even more impressive. I just want to remind you that NATO has currently 150 000 women and men engaged in operations. From Afghanistan, the centre of our presence, to the Balkans, Kosovo, Bosnia but also in the horn of Africa, in support of the UN, in support of the African Union, in support of other regional organisations.

It is natural for a security organisation like NATO to be involved in the issue of gender perspectives. For NATO, the UN resolution 1325 is crucial.

As the only military man in this panel, not in this room but in this panel, let me challenge the stereotype according to which the army is the old or the last bastion of male domination. This is absolutely false! It’s false from a political point of view, from a conceptual and ideological point of view. Actually military people are fully aware of the importance of women. As a matter of fact, our numbers, our statistics prove that the presence of women in the military is not as irrelevant as people think it is. There is not a quota system in NATO troops yet. I am not that sure that women themselves would really want such a system in the military but this is another issue, maybe it’s an idea to pursue.

Certainly there is a wider and greater presence of women in the armies, and even in countries where women are discriminated or less protected, there is a growing number of military women. So therefore we have a full recognition of the importance of this Resolution and of the actions resulting from it.

At NATO, and I can speak for NATO because I do represent NATO in this moment, the gender equality is both a fully embodied principle and a recognized practice.

Mainstreaming gender perspectives has gained momentum, awareness. There is a much greater recognition in our organisation of the importance of this issue to NATO operations and activities.

It is a fact, and Afghanistan is a key in point, that NATO is engaged in very different social and gender sensitive environments. That’s why involving women in operations is crucial if we want to establish relationships and trust with the civil society. It is important to ensure that at all strategic, operational or tactical levels women are present, women are active, women take decisions. 

As you certainly know, in the theatres where we are involved, there are different traditions and cultures. But everywhere our interactions – whether military-to-military, military-to-government or military-to-population, have largely been seen as “man-to-man.” This is no longer true, this is changing, and therefore it is essential to go on injecting gender perspectives in all our actions.

In practice, we started to implement measures. We had principles, now there are facts. In Afghanistan, NATO employed gender advisors at all levels of the two main commands in Kabul. One year later, we already get from them very valuable lessons learned on what they do. The first lesson is that we have to involve gender advisors at all levels of command structures, not just at the top level, at all levels of command structures in all our operations.

It takes time. It takes patience. It takes determination. But first and foremost, it takes leadership. It takes the will to do it and the determination to do it. And NATO is certainly on this path.

Women in NATO are engaged on the field, and their day-by-day activities are crucial because they have a unique capacity to interact and to bond with the local women. This is fundamental! As General Ruperts wrote in a famous book about war and peace, now during operations, we don’t fight against the people anymore, we fight amongst the people. And this results in a completely different environment.

Again, it is essential to embed gender structures at all levels of NATO’s organisation. In Brussels, in the Commands, in SHAPE, in ACT, in Brunssum, Naples and Lisbon, and even more in operations. And for that we need leaders’ commitment. Leaders’ commitment and leaders’ engagement to provide the resources which are necessary.

NATO has established a gender policy which is based on five fields of actions:

• first, mainstreaming gender perspectives in policy doctrines and practices;
• second, cooperating with international organisations and civil society;
• third, educating and training;
• fourth, focusing on operations;
• and fifth, involving public diplomacy.

In fact, the celebration of the tenth anniversary of resolution 1325 is part of NATO’s Public Diplomacy. A public exhibition on Women, Peace and Security will take place at NATO headquarters for ten days from the fourteen to the twenty-four of September. It will demonstrate what NATO does for gender perspectives. And I think this is an important mission.

Another key issue is training. Training people to gender perspectives is not something easy, we need to work hard on that. As a matter of fact, most of the troops deployed on the field had never received a specific training on gender issues. Nowadays still only a few of them are properly trained. That is why we decided to put gender advisors in our two main Strategic Commands, ACO in SHAPE and ACT in Norfolk, in order to work on this issue, and to try to intensify, to improve our training capacities inside NATO Institutions, such as in NATO Defence College in Rome, in NATO School in Oberammergau and in other centres of excellence within the Alliance.

The two major Commanders, SACEUR and SACT, developed a Directive on Gender Perspectives which has to be implemented in the whole chain of command and in all the different activities.

So these are actions, these are facts, these are realities.

Everyday NATO women in Afghanistan commit to Afghan women, because we understand the importance of women in every society and their role in Afghanistan society. Everywhere women have a very strong influence. Even in Afghanistan. Even in a social environment dominated by men, they can influence their husband, their children, their brothers. If we could reach them, their influence on men would be helpful and would permit us to better understand how stabilisation and progresses could be provided.

Women advice, women ideas, women indications always give us a better view on what is really going among the society, which is different to what we think is going on.

Our Policy on Gender Perspectives, embodied by the Directive I mentioned before, is based on the three areas identified by the Security Council Resolution 1325. ‘Prevention’, because we want to prevent the disproportionate impact of conflicts on women and children. ‘Protection’, because we want to protect women and children. And ‘Participation’, as we want to promote participation of women in all aspects of our activities. These are the tree P: Prevent, Protect, Participate. Four “P” actually, because we also care about Promoting women active role in security issues. Under the leadership of our Secretary General, who is fully committed to gender perspectives, NATO keeps moving in the right direction.

To conclude, I would like to remind you that NATO is completely devoted to promote Resolution 1325. In our comprehensive approach, which is now the basis of the way NATO operates in security missions, the gender issue is even more important. But we still have to do better. You have to help us to do better.  Because you have the knowledge. Because we need to cooperate and interact with other organisations, with other Institutions, with the UN, with UNIFEM, EU, NGOs. So, help us to do a better job for the security of everyone. We can help to build a sustainable security framework, and you can assist us, with your gender perspective knowledge, to help building and maintaining more stability and security for all.

Thank you very much.