Women’s Global Challenges

Your Excellency Ibu Ratu, Ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the Norwegian Government, I would like to thank the University of Indonesia and the Ministry for Women’s empowerment for hosting this seminar.

Conflict, post-conflict situations and peace processes pose serious challenges to human rights and the security of the individual. This applies particularly to protection of women and girls.

This first session of the conference is entitled “Women’s Global Challenges” and it made me think of one report in particular that made a huge impact.

The report I refer to is “Women, War, Peace”  by Elisabeth Rehn and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. As many of you are already familiar with,

Six years ago, in 2001, Elisabeth Rehn and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf were appointed by UNIFEM to conduct an independent assessment of women, war and peace around the world. Their assessment resulted in a report that concluded with a set of concrete recommendations.

The report gives a stunning picture of women and girl’s experiences in times of war and post-conflict situations. The human rights violence they documented are still the reality for women and girls in today’s war torn countries and regions.

The collection of expert’s recommendations are still valid, - and even though Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Securityare widely known these days, the progress on the implementation side is slow and fragmented.

It’s about time that we face these global challenges with commitment and action both at the local and at the global level.

And we cannot expect women to do all this alone. We need support from strong, gender sensitive men to advocate for women’s issues and gender equality. And we need gender equality frameworks, tools and resources that can make institutions and organisations, as well as people, accountable. 

My own country, Norway, is strongly committed to gender equality and we believe that women’s empowerment is the key to social, economical and political development. We believe that the greatest gains countries can achieve, economically as well as politically, come with empowering women.

Norway’s Action Plan on women, peace and security

8th March last year Norway launched an Action Plan for the implementation of the Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.

Resolution 1325 advocates for systematic integration for gender perspectives in the policies and guidelines concerning conflict resolution and peace building.

Through this action plan Norway will work for the increased participation and representation of women in local and international peacebuilding processes and intensify our efforts to safeguard women’s right to protection in conflict situations.

I will come back to challenges related to the implementation of Resolution 1325 in a short while, let me just give you an update on our latest achievement in engendering our politics:

New Action Plan for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the development co-operation

On International Women’s Day 8th March this year Norway launched a new 3-year Action Plan for women’s rights and gender equality in development cooperation. This Plan is founded on a strong human rights approach focusing on four main areas:

• Women’s political rights and participation
• Women’s economic rights and participation
• Sexual and reproductive rights; and
• Violence against women

At the same time, the Plan outlines concrete measures and targets to integrate gender equality into our other priority areas. The Plan is backed by monetary and staff resources.

The Plan will be followed shortly by a White Paper to Stortinget, the Norwegian Parliament. The White Paper will outline the longer-term goals, ambitions and strategy and will bridge the gap between Norwegian Foreign policy and international development.

The Minister of Development Co-operation has on several occasions underscored that Norway will follow a two-pronged strategy for women’s rights and gender equality in development cooperation:

• Gender mainstreaming in all fields and at all levels of policies; and
• Targeted interventions for women and gender equality.

Financing

Importantly, attention has been directed to financing for women and development. A specific budget line for women and gender equality was introduced this year.

Additional new money has been allocated to targeted measures for women and gender equality over other budget lines, notably for humanitarian assistance, and peace and reconciliation. Altogether, allocations for targeted measures have been increased by appr. US$ 65 mill.

In parallel, we scrutinise the development co-operation budget with gender lenses. The objective is to ensure that all budget lines for development co-operation visibly incorporate gender equality objectives.

The Action Plan is ambitious and demanding. It challenges our development partners to deliver for women on the ground. To achieve this, sharing of experiences and dialogue, is necessary.

The new Action Plan came as a response to the discouraging Evaluation of the Norwegian Strategy for Women and Gender Equality 1997-2005. The Evaluation showed that the pure gender mainstreaming strategy Norway followed, had failed. It had resulted in loss of visibility, lack of action and a decrease of spending on women empowerment and gender equality initiatives.

The Evaluation demonstrates that targeted interventions and more control with resource allocation is necessary. Norway is committed to targeted action.

Pushing for change in the multilateral institutions/ UN-reform

We strongly support the recommendations from the UN High-level Panel on System-wide Coherence. We appreciate the initiative by the Indonesian government to co-host with Norway a high-level regional conference on UN reform in Jakarta last month.

The first reform issue to be discussed in the UN General Assembly is an issue of particular relevance for this conference - the need to establish a strong gender entity in the UN. The existing gender architecture does important work, but is weak and fragmented. The new entity should integrate and strengthen both operational and normative functions. It should have sufficient high and independent status to participate in key governance structures in the UN.  The gender entity should have sufficient and predictable funding. Norway has proposed a floor target of minimum USD 200 million.

Norway will push multilateral organizations where we sit on their boards, and hold them accountable for promoting women and gender equality. They have to document that they deliver for women on the ground. 

We are eager to continue to work closely with Indonesia and other Asian countries on this issue.

This conference put a particular focus on;

Women’s peace initiatives and the challenges women experience in war and conflict.

Let me go back a little bit,

Armed conflict can significantly impact the gender roles, responsibilities and relations of women, men, girls and boys. Women many times assume roles and perform tasks that are traditionally considered to be masculine tasks like becoming the sole bread earners of the family, protectors of family members etc.

Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security promotes a more long-term transformation of gender roles with a view to achieve both equality and sustainable peace. 

Can we risk loosing these opportunities for change?

During their expert’s assessment, Elisabeth Rehn and Ellen Johnson-Sirelaf met women called Vesna, an activist from Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She told that,
“Woman has grown in wartime because she has carried the burden while the men where away fighting. She will therefore not settle for less now, after the war.”

But the reality is that women in countries emerging from conflict have not been given equal opportunities to work or take part in community and political life.

We cannot afford to lose the opportunities we have to create more sustainable development and just societies that will enhance the dignity and well-being of all.

We cannot afford to let women and girls be raped and traumatized for life. These human rights violations ruin communities and societies as a whole. We need a healthy and safe environment where individuals can take control of their own life and future.

Security Council Resolution 1325 represents a strong incentive for stronger efforts to make sure that women are better protected, but also given access to arenas of decision making and participation in peace building processes. But we see that six years after the adoption of the Resolution, the accountability and monitoring mechanisms for its implementation at the national, regional or global levels are still weak. 

Norwegian peace efforts: The main challenges for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325

Security Council Resolution 1325 should enable policy makers and decision makers to rethink their perceptions of the role women can play in peace building. It provides a framework for gender equality in conflict resolution and peace building.

One of the most important challenges in this regard, is how to integrate this perspective in our daily work. The Resolution promotes women playing the role of catalyst and change agents, actively participating in the peace process.

Before I give the floor to the next speaker I will share some reflections and experiences on;

How does Norway include the gender perspective in our engagement for peace?

Norway works along several dimensions in order to increase the participation and representation of women in peace processes.

Let me mention two cases:

• First, as a facilitator of peace processes we have a special responsibility to ensure that women are involved. In Sri Lanka we suggested the establishment of a Sub-Committee on Gender Issues. The Committee met for the first time in 2003. Both parties were equally represented, and the discussions were chaired by a resource person appointed by the Norwegian government.

The main task of the sub-committee was to secure the active participation of women and the effective inclusion of gender issues on the agenda in the peace process. As the security situation in Sri Lanka today is difficult and the peace process has come to a standstill, the sub-committee is no longer active.

Norway will continue to work for the re-establishment of the sub-committee or a similar mechanism. It should be recognised, however, that the ultimate responsibility for adopting a gender perspective lies with the parties. Norway is not in a position to force parties to increase the proportion of women in negotiating delegations. However, we have a responsibility to continuously remind the parties of the importance of a gender perspective.

• Second, Norway supports locally-based women’s groups in conflict areas around the world. There are numerous examples of women coming together across dividing lines created by war, in order to find ways to stop the violence. The international community has an important role in supporting these efforts with economic, political and logistical assistance.

Norway has for instance supported the establishment of an International Women’s Commission in Israel/Palestine. The purpose of the commission is to draw on the voices and perspectives of women who experience the conflict in their daily lives, and to hold all parties accountable for fulfilling their obligations to include women in the negotiation process.

The importance of including women

• Sustainable peace is contingent on community-based involvement and ownership of the peace process. The involvement of women will improve the quality of decisions and thus the effectiveness of recovery efforts.

• The ultimate goal of all peace efforts is a lasting, sustainable peace. I want to emphasise here today that the use of a gender perspective represents a means to this end. All experience shows that peace processes benefit from the involvement of women. 

Giving a voice to women is not only moral obligation – it is the best way to lay the foundations for peace.

• War affects men and women differently. Women tend to have other priorities for the peace process than men. Including women at an early stage will result in better knowledge of the local population’s situation and needs.

• In all societies women represent groups and networks with different religious, social and ethnic backgrounds. Strong women’s movement is crucial to identify different needs. All voices must be heard.

• The post-conflict transition period provides an opportunity to create a democratic and equal society. The gender aspect must be included from day one.

Finally

I can assure you that Norway will use every opportunity to promote the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325.

We will continue to support women’s engagement in peacebuiling. 

There are still a lot of people that haven’t discovered the benefit of using gender lenses in their daily work. Some tend to think it’s too complicated and say “ If we work on gender issues, aren’t we interfering in local cultures?

I would stress the fact that we are using gender analysis first and foremost to understand what is going on in a conflict situation and how to best shape the response.

With participation from all of us, representing both students, NGO’s, government, academics, religious leaders and others, we should be able to make a difference. We should look for solutions rather than difficulties.

Thank you