Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Side Event

Thursday, October 31, 2019 | The Church Center for the United Nations |777 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017

As the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda marks its 20th anniversary in 2020, international action to include women’s perspectives, needs, and work in prevention efforts remains limited, and current prevention initiatives have yet to develop and integrate their gender analysis capabilities. Without adequate consideration of the unique ways women experience conflict and atrocities, many crises remain off and fail to make the UNSC agenda.

In order to ensure its effectiveness, the accountability framework on WPS needs to draw from and strengthen the work of women of all ages. This is particularly crucial for young women who often have less access to prevention spaces at national, regional, and institutional levels, but play crucial roles in their local communities. The International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect (ICRtoP), the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), Cordaid, WO=MEN Dutch Gender Platform, and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York, along with the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN, convened a side event to amplify and assess opportunities for strengthening young women’s role in prevention. The event will provide an open space to share practical experiences, including successes, key challenges, and recommendations on sustained leadership of young women in conflict and atrocity prevention at the local level.

The event featured a panel of experts working in and on conflict and atrocity prevention agendas. Including Storai Tapesh (Deputy Executive Director, Afghan Women Network), Beverly Orozco (Program Director, Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute for Peace Advocacy and Networking & Head of the National Secretariat of Generation Peace Youth Network), Henk-Jan Brinkman (Chief, Peacebuilding Strategy and Partnerships Branch Peacebuilding Support Office, Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs), and a representative (TBC) from the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN. Sharon Bhagwan Rolls (Board Chair, Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC)) will moderate the event.