DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION of National Action Plans ...

Executive SummaryThe suffering of women in war, the under-valued and under-utilized conflict preventionand peacebuilding work of women and the leadership they show in rebuilding wartornsocieties and their continued exclusion from positions of decision-making in thesphere of peace and security resulted in many calls for women’s full and equal participationand gender mainstreaming in all peace and security initiatives with the resultant documentUNSCR 1325. As a result, on October 31, 2000, UNSCR 1325 was unanimously adopted. Sincethen four other complementary resolutions have been adopted – UNSCR 1820, 1888, 1889and 1960. These five resolutions are often referred to as the Women and Peace and SecurityFramework. They provide the basis for advocacy, education, reform and capacity buildingon gender equality and women’s rights as they relate to peace operations.The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) recognized that the national implementation ofUNSCR 1325 and related resolutions is an important mechanism for furthering the women,peace and security agenda. This was why the United Nations Security Council Presidentialstatements of 2004/40 and 2005/52, called to member states to implement the resolution1325 including the development of NAPs or other national level strategies such as peacepolicies, gender policies or medium/long term development plans and has consistentlyrecommended that member states accelerate the development of both national andregional action plans for the implementation of UNSCR 1325.More than a decade after the adoption of UNSCR 1325, women’s participation in formalpeace negotiations still remains minimal; women’s specific needs in refugee and IDPscamps and in disarmament and reintegration efforts are still largely un-met; sexual andother forms of VAWG is still prevalent during and after armed conflict and the overallprogress on implementing UNSCR 1325 globally has remained slow and inconsistent andonly 42 out of the 192 member states have elaborated and adopted NAPs. Lack of politicalwill and technical know-how have been cited as some of the reasons for the slow pace inelaboration of NAPs. The second reason – lack of technical know-how is the main reason forthis guideline whose purpose is to provide a generic template – a simple step-by-step guideto the formulation and implementation of NAPs.The Guideline is divided into five sections. Section 1 deals with the introduction whichprovides information on women, peace and security, UNSCR 1325 and related resolutions,importance of NAPs in the implementation of UNSCR 1325 and the purpose of the guideline.Section 2 focuses on the processes of developing the guideline including the inception,context/situational analysis, stakeholder mapping and their roles, establishment of acoordinating mechanism, enabling stakeholder participation, through defining content ofNAPs, identifying opportunities for resources mobilization, drafting of the NAPs, validation,xi