By Staff Reporter
Namibia will host the third annual women, peace and security meeting (WPS) in Windhoek from 10 – 11 April 2019 at the Namibia Institute of Public Administration and Management (NIPAM).
In a media release sent to Caprivi Vision from the Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation, The theme of the upcoming meeting will be, “Women, Peace and Security: Towards Full Participation”, with the sub theme; “Mainstreaming the WPS Agenda in the Regional Economic Communities (RECs)”.
The aim is to build the deliberations and outcome of preceding meeting held in Alicante-Spain in 2017 and in Berlin-German in 2018.
In the meeting there will be an official handover of the chairmanship from German to Namibia. WPS focal point network is a cross regional forum constituting of more than 80 United Nation (UN) member states regional and sub-regional organizations’ that are committed with improving and strengthen the implementation of the women peace security agenda.
Through network, member states and international organizations reaffirm their commitments to ensure global commitments and obligations related to WSP agenda with the provision resolutions of the unite nation 1325 are effectively integrated into national and regional policy frameworks and legislations through development of national action policy.
In her speech on Friday,Namibia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwa said Namibia was elected by the UN General Assembly to serve and represent Africa on the UN Security Council from 1999-2000.
In October 2000 the presidency of the UN assumed and as part of its obligation to organise an open meeting of all the UN members’ states to debate issues relevant to the maintenance of international peace and security Namibia chose to organise a meeting on women, peace and security.
The choice of the theme was informed by various factors and among the theme were the liberation struggle history, active role played by women and their projection in conflict situation as mere victims.
She however, mentioned that the main elements of resolution 1325 were the inclusion of women in the UN peace keeping operations, peace building missions as well as addressing sexual violence in conflict situations and other several resolutions were adopted by UN on the same issues.
A global study was undertaken to review the effectiveness of resolution 1325. The study revealed that while there was some progress on the implementation of the resolution there was still critical shortage of women participating in peace progresses on national, regional and international levels.
Deputy Premier added that global study highlighted the need for stronger uptake of WPS agenda by regional organisations and the need to accelerate the pace of developing and implementing national active plan by member states.
“I am pleased to reiterate that Namibia has concluded its national action and the cabinet have approved it. It was within this context that Spain and Namibia with other several UN member states came together and formed global network of focal points” she said.
Global network is aimed at raising awareness and advocating for implementation of women peace and security agenda by formulating national action plan. The meeting is taking place in Africa for the first time.
Focus sub theme areas shall be the WPS agenda, disarmament, small arms and light weapons. National action plan which will include coordination, monitoring, evaluation and financing. Sub theme will also look at WPS implementation, the role of sub regional organization, peace lab for youth leader tackling the participation of women and youth.
The Network gradually meets in one of its member states once a year, with a follow up meeting in New York, United States of America.
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