It is my honor to provide Norway’s pledge of tangible, concrete commitments on Women, Peace and Security priorities.
We commit to implementing our new National Action Plan for Women, Peace and Security (2019 – 2022) which has higher, more ambitious goals and an improved results framework compared to the previous one.
In accordance with this National Action Plan we pledge to increase funding dedicated to efforts targeted at women, peace and security policies and efforts. This includes activities undertaken by civil society and activities through the Women, Peace and Humanitarian Fund. We will work to increase the proportion of Norwegian aid to countries in conflict and post-conflict that has a gender marker.
We also commit to starting earlier and staying longer in our efforts to strengthen women’s participation and rights in peace and reconciliation efforts; from very early dialogue initiatives, to our support to the implementation of peace agreements.
Through our partnerships, bilaterally, multilaterally, as member of the UN and other intergovernmental organizations and in collaboration with other international organization such as the African Union:
We commit to mobilize enhanced political commitments on women’s rights. We pledge to do our outmost to prevent that we take steps backwards on joint commitments and achievements - such as denying survivors of conflict-related sexual violence basic sexual and reproductive health and rights. We pledge to mobilize financial resources more broadly to protect and assist people at risk and survivors of such violence.
I wish to highlight six new initiatives we are pursuing:
Together with Somalia, UN Office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (UNOCHA), UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other partners, we are hosting the conference “Ending sexual and gender-based violence in humanitarian crises”, in Oslo on 23-24 May.
Together with the UN, we are finalizing the all-of-mission handbook on the prevention and response to conflict-related sexual violence. The handbook will be launched this year, for use in UN operations.
We support a study on the impact of women’s participation in peacekeeping, to be finalized during spring of 2020.
In association with the Elsie Initiative, Canada and Norway are supporting the development of a tool to identify and formulate strategies to address gender-specific barriers within Member States’ military and police organizations.
The second, like the first Global Women, Peace and Security Index, is being developed with Norwegian support. The objective is to improve relevance and targeting of Women, Peace and Security and conflict prevention efforts. It will be launched in October.
Lastly, within the framework of the Nordic Network of Women Mediators, and together with the other regional networks of women mediators, the Norwegian branch will work to strengthen synergies and explore opportunities for cooperation. The plan is to launch a global alliance of regional networks later this year.
Thank you.