Thank you so much, first of all, for the opportunity to address you today.
This is indeed a welcome and timely study and we are very honoured to contribute to its findings and recommendations. The Nobel Women's Initiative is led by six courageous women Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Together they use the prestige of the prize to support women activists and movements across the world. The Nobel Women's Initiative has been supporting women peace builders around the world for a decade. We have supported survivors of sexual violence in Colombia to ensure their needs are included in the peace process. We have supported women in the DRC to provide services to survivors and rebuild their communities. We have supported women in Burma to do community training on the importance of women's participation in the peace process from which they have been barred till this day.
We are now supporting Syrian women who are struggling to participate meaningfully in the Geneva peace talks. Many of these women would make excellent witnesses to this study and we would be happy to facilitate their participation here.
This foreign affairs committee study on the women, peace, and security agenda is timely as we have just marked the 15th anniversary of UN Security Council resolution 1325 last October. The UN “Global Study on the Implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1325”, which included consultations with thousands of women peacemakers, found that there's a crippling gap between governments' commitments and actual political will and financial support.
Key findings of the study include the comprehensive normative framework that has been developed, especially on sexual violence in conflict. Less has been achieved on women's participation. Progress continues to be measured in firsts rather than in standard practice. There's a worrying lack of funding. Only 54 member states have national action plans for the implementation of 1325, and the rise of violent extremism has led to increased threats to women.
Clearly, business as usual is not what's going to solve today's complex emergencies and conflicts in places such as Syria and Yemen. We need new ways of thinking and doing, and the “Global Study on the Implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1325” does exactly that. It provides us with a road map of what the new ways of operating should entail. What is so revolutionary about the women, peace, and security agenda is its recognition that women's security is integral to the security of states and vice-versa. Evidence shows that societies with greater gender equality are more peaceful societies. This means investing in gender equality and women's empowerment is the means to peace.
It is mind-boggling that the international community has made so little progress in the last 15 years when it comes to women's participation. The women, peace, and security agenda recognizes women's participation as crucial to building sustainable peace. Evidence compiled in the global study shows that the participation of women at all levels is key to operational effectiveness, success, and sustainability of peace processes and peace-building efforts. Further, studies show that in cases of women's participation and strong influence, a peace agreement has always been reached. Women's participation also correlates with a greater likelihood of agreements being implemented, yet with each new process under way, women literally have to knock down doors to get inside.
Based on progress reports of the Canadian national action plan, much of the Government of Canada's efforts in terms of women's participation has focused on first, increasing women's inclusion in military and policing operations; second, increasing female officials at its missions abroad; and third, supporting the UN in developing a roster of qualified women to be staffed in senior positions.
Little effort has been made in terms of women's participation in peace processes. In terms of conflict areas, most of the participation reporting in the C-NAP progress report has focused on Afghanistan. With other conflict countries lagging behind, this points to personal commitment rather than government policy.
There is much more Canada can do to ensure women's meaningful participation in peace processes, and here are three overarching suggestions.
First of all, Canada must play a greater leadership role in promoting increased participation of women and ensuring their access in all stages of peace processes. As we are seeing with the current Syria peace process, women face severe obstacles to meaningfully participate in the talks. While they've been assigned an advisory body role, they continue to lack influence and resources to independently engage.
One problem of the current Syria talks, as has been with all other talks, is that it followed the usual method—men designed and set up the process first, and then brought women into a process where most of the decisions are made by a small group of men. According to the global study, there have been very few cases in which women's participation was an integral component of the design process. Generally women's participation is seen as a technical add-on, in a little tick box, once the process is designed and under way. But women must be part of these processes from the design of the preliminary talks, throughout negotiations, as well as implementation.
The Colombian case has been hailed as the best process yet, in terms of women's participation, but we are still very far from what the global community aspired to with UN Security Council resolution 1325. Due to pressure from women's organizations, the Havana peace negotiations included special gender advisers for both sides of the table and the gender subcommittee. However, at the highest level of the negotiation process, you only see one woman.
Now, as Colombia moves forward toward implementation of the peace agreements and the ceasefire, what the under-representation of women at the peace table means in practical terms is a high level of tolerance for ongoing violence against women, particularly against Afro-Colombian and indigenous women, with a 100% impunity for cases dating back to the conflict. Women's groups are now pressuring the government and the UN to include sexual violence as a breach of the ceasefire agreement. Without women at the table, sexual violence will not be properly addressed, and tends to proliferate post-conflict, as can be seen in Liberia and DRC.
Some key recommendations for Canada on concrete steps to promote women's participation include the following: speak out consistently, publicly, and at the highest level on the importance of women's participation as a matter of rights and effectiveness; hold envoys, mediators, and negotiation parties accountable to international norms and commitments; facilitate the participation of women, including provision of logistical support and security, particularly in the early stages of peace negotiations and the implementation of agreements and ceasefires; and hold regular consultations with women to learn about their challenges and collectively find solutions to bring them to the table.
Secondly, Canada must play a key role in strengthening women's movements. Based on the research of 40 case studies, women's inclusion was mostly initiated and achieved via concerted pressure by women's organizations, rather than by conflict parties, the mediators, or the organizers of the negotiations. This is true in the case of Syria, where it was the collective effort of local, national, and international women's organizations that pressured UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura to carve out a role for women in the talks and appoint a women's advisory body.
Research also demonstrates that it is women's movements, not individual women, that have the means to influence the talks. In too many cases, token women are appointed without any meaningful engagement. This was the case in the Myanmar peace process, where two women were appointed who did not have the force of a movement behind them to influence the talks. Yet women's organizations are consistently underfunded, under-resourced, and operating at great personal risks. The global study identified the failure to allocate sufficient resources and funding as perhaps the most serious and unrelenting obstacle to the implementation of the women, peace, and security agenda. Women's organizations need consistent, significant, and reliable funding.
In terms of recommendations for Canada, first, Canada must develop a funding mechanism to ensure that resources reach women's organizations and movements. These mechanisms must include easily accessible, multi-year core funding for women's organizations, with dedicated funding going directly to grassroots organizations. Canada must earmark a minimum of 15% of all funding related to peace and security for programs whose principal objective is to address women's specific needs and advance gender equality, as called for by the UN.
Canada must also develop a protection strategy for its missions to support women peace builders around the world facing significant threats as a result of their work. While increased funding is one means of protection, Canadian officials must publicly stand up for the women in their countries and demand accountability for threats against them. Such a strategy must include regular consultations with women's organizations and support for their participation in national, regional, and international forums.
Thirdly, Canada must strengthen the national action plan on the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325. The national action plan is a means to set out an ambitious policy directive that ensures that women, peace, and security commitments are reflected across the full range of international policies.
A mid-term review of the C-NAP conducted by Inclusive Security found it was seen as not significantly influencing Canada's overall policy direction with respect to conflict-affected and fragile states. That's tragic. We hope that the second edition of the C-NAP will live up to its potential.
Here are our recommendations.
The C-NAP must set out a vision for Canada's engagement in the world, not just in conflict and post-conflict, but also to prevent conflict. One of the four pillars of the women, peace, and security agenda is prevention. The C-NAP must be positioned as a policy directive to achieve that vision with clear goals, results, and indicators upon which to measure success.
As part of the drafting process, extensive consultations of women in conflict areas as well as key international players working on women, peace, and security must be held, and their views reflected in the new C-NAP. Canada must also take a more holistic approach in addressing all four pillars of the women, peace, and security agenda, building on their interlinkages and recognizing that women's status in peace will determine their experience in war.
Canada must provide a dedicated budget for the C-NAP, including funds for staff as well as accountability mechanisms. Canada must appoint a high-level champion or special envoy that is staffed and resourced to oversee the implementation of the C-NAP, and most importantly, its vision.
Thank you.