Women’s Global Challenges

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 the protection of women and girls.

The title of this first session of the conference, “Women’s Global Challenges”, made me think of one particular report that made a huge impact.

The report I refer to is Women, War, Peace by Elisabeth Rehn and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, which 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 report included a set of concrete recommendations.

It gives a shocking picture of women’s and girls’ experiences in war and post-conflict situations. And the human rights violations documented are still taking place in war-torn countries and regions today.

Moreover, the recommendations are still valid, but although both they and Security Council resolution 1325 are widely known, progress on the implementation side has been slow and fragmented.

It’s high time that we faced these global problems with commitment and action both at local and at global level.

We can’t expect women meet these problems alone. We need to mobilise strong, gender-sensitive men to advocate women’s issues and gender equality. And we need to develop 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, economic 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
On 8 March – International Women’s Day – last year, Norway launched its Action Plan for the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.

Security Council resolution 1325 advocates the systematic integration of gender perspectives into policies and guidelines on conflict resolution and peace building.

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

I will say more about the challenges relating to the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 in a short while, but first I would like to give you an update on our most recent achievement in engendering politics.

New action plan for development cooperation
On International Women’s Day this year Norway launched its new three-year Action plan for women’s rights and gender equality in development cooperation. It is based on a strong human rights approach, and focuses on four thematic priority areas:

• women’s political empowerment,
• women’s economic empowerment,
• sexual and reproductive health rights, and
• violence against women. (endringer i forhold til oversettelsen av planen****)

The plan also outlines concrete measures and targets for mainstreaming gender equality into our other priority areas. Funding and human resources will be made available for the follow-up of the plan.

In addition, a white paper will be produced in the near future outlining the longer-term goals, ambitions and the strategy for bridging the gap between Norwegian foreign policy and international development.

The Minister of International Development has underscored that Norway will follow a two-pronged strategy for integrating women’s rights and gender equality into development cooperation:

• gender mainstreaming in all fields and at all levels of policies, and
• targeted interventions for women and gender equality.

Funding
Importantly, attention has been directed to the allocation of funds for women and development. A specific budget line for women and gender equality was introduced this year.

Additional new money has also been allocated to targeted measures for women and gender equality over other budget lines, notably humanitarian assistance and peace and reconciliation. Altogether, allocations for targeted measures have been increased by nearly NOK 400 million (approximately USD 65 million).

In parallel, we are scrutinising the development cooperation budget with gender lenses. The objective is to ensure that all budget lines for development cooperation visibly incorporate gender equality objectives.

The action plan is ambitious and demanding. It challenges our development partners to deliver for women on the ground.  Dialogue and sharing experience will be vital.

The action plan was drawn up in response to the discouraging evaluation of the Norwegian Strategy for Women and Gender Equality 1997-2005. The evaluation showed that the pure gender mainstreaming approach Norway was following had failed. It had resulted in loss of visibility, lack of action and less spending on women’s empowerment and gender equality initiatives.

The evaluation demonstrated that targeted interventions and greater control of resource allocation are necessary.

The overall objective of Norway’s development cooperation policy is to improve economic, social and political conditions in developing countries. This cannot be achieved unless women, who account for half of the population, are empowered and are able to realise their rights. As Prime Minister Stoltenberg pointed out last year, the greatest gains countries can achieve come with empowering women.

Pushing for change in the multilateral institutions
We strongly support the recommendations of the UN High-Level Panel on System-Wide Coherence. And we appreciated the initiative by the Indonesian Government to co-host with Norway the high-level regional conference on UN reform in Jakarta last month.

The first reform issue to be discussed in the UN General Assembly is 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 sufficiently high and independent status to participate in key governance structures in the UN. And it should have adequate, predictable funding. Norway has proposed a floor target of USD 200 million.

Norway will push multilateral organisations where we are board members, and hold them accountable for promoting women’s rights and gender equality. These organisations must be able to document results for women on the ground. 

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

I would now like to return to the topic of women’s roles in war and conflict and the problems they face.

Armed conflict can have a significant impact on gender roles, responsibilities and relations between women, men, girls and boys. Women often assume roles and perform tasks that are traditionally considered to be the domain of men, such as being the sole bread winner and protecting family members, etc.

In many of these cases, men view the change in gender role as transitory and will ensure that traditional gender roles are reinstituted as soon as they regain control. 

Security Council resolution 1325 promotes a more long-term transformation of gender roles with a view to achieving both equality and sustainable peace. Because peace negotiations and the reconstruction of societies and institutions also represent new opportunities for women.

Is there a risk of losing these opportunities for change?

In their report, Elisabeth Rehn and Ellen Johnson-Sirelaf quote an activist from Mostar in Bosnia Herzegovina called Vesna, who said, “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 and take part in community or political life.

We cannot afford to lose these opportunities to create more sustainable and just societies and enhance the dignity and well-being of all.

We cannot afford to let women and girls be raped and thus traumatised for life. Such atrocities devastate whole communities and societies. We must develop healthy, safe environments where individuals can take control of their own lives and futures.

Security Council resolution 1325 is a strong incentive for intensifying efforts to ensure better protection of women and to improve their access to arenas of decision-making and opportunities to participate in peacebuilding processes. However, six years after the resolution was adopted, we see that the accountability and monitoring mechanisms for its implementation at national, regional and global levels are still weak. 

Implementing Security Council resolution 1325
Resolution 1325 should make policy makers and decision makers revise their perceptions of the role women can play in peacebuilding. It provides a framework for mainstreaming gender equality in peacebuilding and reconstruction. One of the most important questions is how to integrate this perspective in our daily work.

It is not enough to just add on a few women in side meetings or as beneficiaries. The resolution promotes a role for women as catalysts and change agents who meaningfully participate in peace processes.

Before I give the floor to the next speaker, I would like to share some of the ways Norway includes the gender perspective in its peace efforts.

Norway works along several dimensions to increase the participation and representation of women in peace processes. I will highlight two of them.

Firstly, in our role as facilitator we have a special responsibility to ensure that women are involved in peace processes. In Sri Lanka we proposed the establishment of the Sub-Committee on Gender Issues. The sub-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 in the peace process agenda. 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. We do though have a responsibility to continuously remind the parties of the importance of a gender perspective.

Secondly, Norway supports local women’s groups in conflict areas around the world. There are numerous examples of women coming together across the dividing lines created by war to seek ways to stop the violence. The international community has an important role to play in providing economic, political and logistical assistance for such efforts.

For instance, Norway has supported the establishment of the International Women’s Commission for a Just and Sustainable Israeli-Palestinian Peace. 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 participation of women will improve the quality of decisions and thus the effectiveness of recovery efforts.

The ultimate goal of all reconciliation 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. It strengthens the implementation of a peace agreement and ensures broader support for changes that will affect people’s everyday lives.

Giving a voice to women is therefore not only a moral duty, it is also the best way to lay the foundations for peace. And we promote women’s participation both because women have an equal right to be involved, and because their inputs adds value to all decisions.

War is a gendered experience in the sense that women are affected in different ways than men. Women also tend to have other priorities in the peace process than men, and including women at an early stage can result in better knowledge of the local population’s situation and needs.

It is important to recognise that women do not constitute a homogenous group. In all societies, women belong to a variety of groups and networks and have different religious, social and ethnic backgrounds. To ensure broad, inclusive participation, it is crucial to identify the different needs of these groups, and to give them all an opportunity to be heard, including groups that have been underprivileged.

The period of transition after a conflict is an opportunity to create a democratic and equal society. It is obviously difficult to democratise political decision-making immediately after a conflict has come to an end. However, the gender aspect should still be included from day one. There should be a clear action plan and strategy with goals and timetables.

Aceh
Norway has supported a research project on the status of women’s involvement in the implementation of the peace agreement in Aceh. The project was carried out by the Crisis Management Initiative, and the final report made recommendations for enhancing women’s participation in the peace process. The project concluded that the parties should make gender mainstreaming a strategic priority in peace process implementation. I hope you will have time to discuss how this can be achieved in the workshops.

Local measures
It is important to support projects in conflict areas that are designed to protect women and girls from sexual violence, including human trafficking, and that assist in the rehabilitation and reintegration of the victims. Particular attention must be paid to measures to support traumatised women and girls.

In this regard I know that the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment here in Indonesia, together with the Police and others, have initiated an agreement between the police stations around Indonesia to improve the conditions and protection of women who have experienced gender-based violence. The establishment of the formal Policewomen’s Desk and the training programmes for policewomen on how to handle cases of gender-based violence are very important achievements.

There are still a lot of people who haven’t discovered the benefit of using gender lenses in their daily work. Some think it’s too complicated and ask whether working on gender issues isn’t interfering in local cultures?

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

Let me assure you that Norway will use every opportunity to promote the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325, and we welcome the efforts of others.  (flyttet****)

I believe that the joint efforts of all of us – students, NGOs, government, academics, religious leaders and others – should be able to make a difference. We must look for solutions rather than obstacles.

This conference and the workshop (se oversrift**) can improve our understanding of the challenges women face, and hopefully will also provide us with some solutions and concrete measures to act upon.

Thank you.