I'll begin with that comment about the Security Council bid, and I fully see that perspective about being weary. I would reiterate that if the theme of women, peace, and security is at the heart of Canada's bid, walking the talk on those values will be incredibly important, and will actually set a tone. We're at a point at the moment where we see a lot of lip service being paid to this agenda, but too few are actually walking the talk.
In October of last year, during the 15-year anniversary at the Security Council resolution, it was actually the largest open debate in the Security Council's history, not just the largest of debates on women, peace, and security, but the largest of any debate that ever took place in the Security Council. There were 112 registered speakers. Everyone was lining up to say how important this agenda is, but very few of them carry it through in terms of implementation. There is a real opportunity here to set that agenda and set that standard.
In terms of the role of women, I could not agree with you more. As UN Women, our focus has strongly been on women's participation and leadership and how we can support that, recognizing that there are important components of protection that do underpin that. The kind of insecurity and violence that women continue to face, both during conflict and post-conflict, undermines and weakens their ability to participate in economic recovery, post-conflict elections, etc., as Randi mentioned. Therefore, there are important elements of protection that do underpin participation, and the entire agenda does need to fit together when we look at that.
However, I do think far more attention needs to be paid to the role of women in securing peace and security. Just to mention Mali again, one of things that was mentioned to the Security Council during that informal expert group meeting on women, peace, and security was recent research that was undertaken in the north of Mali on the gender influences on demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants. What the research found was a very stark gender division in influences on ex-combatants. They were asked who it was that influenced them to take up arms, to continue fighting, and to come back and sustainably reintegrate. In just one of those areas, to come back and sustainably reintegrate and stay in their communities, the distinction was that 40% had been influenced by their mothers to come back. We miss the influence, the role that women can play in those kinds of societies.
We also miss the fact that women in communities are the first to notice the signs of radicalization in their families, and are at the front line of conflict prevention. We do need to be supporting that.
I just want to give you one final example. In Burundi, UN Women and the peace-building fund have been supporting a network of 500-plus women mediators in communities across Burundi. Given the incredibly tense situation there at the moment, these women have addressed some 3,000-plus community-level conflicts over the past 18 months. Some were social, some family, and some political. They prevented them from spilling over. They addressed rumours that were leading to population flights between communities. They defused tensions. They negotiated with government for the release of detainees. This is a group of 500 women who've been able to contain the tensions in many of their communities, so I think far more needs to go, in particular, to supporting women's organizations on the ground.
That is something we're trying to do with the new pooled funding mechanism. The global acceleration instrument, GAI, on women, peace, and security and humanitarian engagement is meant to be a funding mechanism of the international community to conduit that money directly where it's needed. In fact, the GAI is now supporting those women in Burundi to scale up those efforts.