Thank you very much for the question, Madam Chair. It's a subject that's near and dear to my heart. I'm always happy to talk about the national action plan, since it was a labour of love. The national action plan is Canada's response to the variety of resolutions developed by the Security Council over the last decade.
Resolution 1325 was the first resolution by the Security Council that established for the first time the importance of recognizing the need to take into account equality between men and women and girls and boys in situations of armed conflict. It makes sure that the international community pays attention to these issues. It makes sure that the United Nations system takes due account of these issues: that peacekeeping operations integrate a gender perspective; that we make sure that women have access to peace processes; that women's rights are advocated; that we address issues related to justice; and that perpetrators of violence and sexual violence against women are held to account. There has been a series of follow-on resolutions over the last 10 years that have further strengthened the original framework set up by resolution 1325.
Our national action plan has been drafted to try to respond to the framework the United Nations has set out by bringing it into the Canadian context. It aims to make sure that we enhance our overall effectiveness and accountability on issues related to peace operations, peace building, and mediation--our programming interventions--in, for instance, development contexts or post-crisis contexts. It essentially emphasizes three things: participation of women and girls in peace processes and conflict management; the protection and promotion of their rights; and equal access to humanitarian and development assistance.
The action plan does this in a number of ways. It advocates for Canadian officials to promote norms and standards. It talks about our role in terms of advocacy. Training and analysis are sub-components of the action plan. It lays out a series of actions we're going to have to take to improve the training we provide to staff across the government who are deployed in these contexts. It also talks about specific program and policy activities we're going to do. If anything, it's a very ambitious plan.
And this is something I have said to other committees that I've had to testify before recently: this is not one of those instances in which the government came out with a plan and could already tick off all of the things. This is a plan that is going to make us stretch quite significantly. We're not yet in a position to implement everything we've put in the plan. It's going to take a lot of hard work.