Women Peace and Security: moving from policy to practice


Women Peace and Security: moving from policy to practice

A dialogue on reflections from conflict-affected contexts

co-organized by Conciliation Resources and GPPAC

14 May 2012 in The Hague

 

Special guests:

Rosa Emilia Salamanca, Director of CIASE (Colombia)

"How can women at local, regional and national level reconstruct societies to see processes of peace beyond events taking place at the negotiation table?"

Ana Paola Tinoco, University professor in Bogotá (Colombia)

"If you promote local dialogue on Women, Peace and security you can protect the people."

Joeven Reyes, Executive Director of Sulong CARHRIHL (the Philippines)

"The shift in public and private partnerships of the government regarding UNSCR 1325 should be evaluated on their real intent and underlying motives."
 

Maria Lourdes Veneracion-Rallonza, Political scientist at the Ateneo de Manila University (the Philippines)

"The question is not how policy can be turned into practice; it is how practice on the ground can be turned into policy. Besides the interview fatigue of local women, it is important to recognize the different experiences of conflict. There is a dissonance between the way international obligations are implemented locally and what local women perceive as necessary."

Dewi Suralaga, Cordaid (the Netherlands)

"Women's security covers a wide range of different elements, from food on the market to the ability
to travel safely. Only a collaboration of actors having a variety of approaches towards these matters
can address the security needs of women".

 

Topics for discussion:

·      The drivers of establishing Women, Peace and Security Policy: the value of a multi-stakeholder approach

·      Taking Women, Peace and Security policy beyond words: challenges and opportunities in implementation

 

Summary of discussion and exchange:

1. Challenge: How to move on from women being perceived as "accidental peacemakers" and being proactive in engaging the media to change perceptions

2. Challenge: Reconciling the peace and the 1325 movement, moving beyond the negotiation
table and bearing in mind the wealth of experience/history of the Women, Peace, and Security movement while utilizing the
1325 principles without them overriding what is there already
 
3. Steps ahead-best practices: Local Action Plans, National Action Plans and 
Internatinoal Action Plans on UNSCR 1325: connecting the layers and different actors while keeping
the context focus: "moving from practice to policy"
 
4. While engaging in the above as the women's movement, we need to keep in mind the need to
talk in unity while appreciating our internal differences which enrich our diversity.

 

Background:

The dialogue is part of a tour in Europe of 2 women from the Philippines and 2 women from Colombia, organized by Conciliation Resources. The tour is a follow-up activity of an exchange visit between 10 women from the Philippines and Colombia, taken place in 2011. The idea of the European tour is to engage in an international dialogue with governments, donor agencies, academics and civil society on challenges, developments and ways forward in implementing UN Security Council Resolutions and other related instruments on Women Peace and Security. To overall goal is to contribute to dialogue between theory, policy and practice on ways to empower women and improve the quality of peace processes.

 


[1] CARHRIHL stands for Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, an agreement signed by the Government of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front in 1988 and put into effect in 2004 as part of the peace talks between the two parties.