A two days workshop organized by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) and Common Action for Gender Development (COMAGEND) on the 22nd and 23th of September 2023 brought together over 40 participants from Bali municipality.
These participants included women leaders, Administrative Authorities, traditional authorities , Religious Authorities Representatives from CSO's, youth leaders and media personalities to brainstorm and acquire knowledge on localization of UN security council resolution 1325 on women peace and security.
There are 4 Pillars which underline Women, Peace, and Security Agenda- Participation, Protection, Prevention, and Relief and Recovery. Also The Security Council has adopted 10 resolutions on Women, Peace and Security (WPS):
Security Council Resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 (2008), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), 2467 (2019), and 2493 (2019). WPS agenda is to recognize the full participation of the community in building peace. Community Initiatives, government initiatives and society initiatives are all a part and parcel of it.
Sally Mboumien Executive Director COMAGEND shared her views with Civiclens.
"There is usually this misconception that women peace and security is for women, probably because of the way the resolution is branded. The resolution was born out of the needs of women but the actors to actualize that resolution is everybody".
And when asked Why this WPS agenda so important in the Context of Bali.
"I will say that it is born out of need ,Bali council just like many local municipalities within the North West and South West Regions have been hit with the ongoing Anglophone crisis".
"They have been so many initiatives towards building peace and this project is born under the fact that we want to see people look for home grown,locally owned and context specific solutions to the conflict. So Bali was taken as the first out of many that GNWP and the US Department of
State's Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues plan to continue working on."
Understanding that GNWP’s Localization strategy is a bottom-up approach to the implementation of UNSCR 1325 and its supporting resolutions as well as that,
the full cycle of implementation through localization comprises of policy advocacy, national action plan development, costing and budgeting, implementation through localization, media and awareness raising, monitoring and evaluation.
A woman leader from the Mbororo minority group of Njenka Community Bali spoke on how the knowledge gathered from this workshop can help the Bali municipality.
" I have had full knowledge on the WPS agenda, Gender Norms and Sex, Military Security and Human Security. returning to my community with full information would ease the work am going to do there Most especially in the Muslim community".
"When they talk about GBV you have to be very tactical because anything we talk about goes along side Religion and having a better understanding of my religion and better understanding of GBV, I think my sensitization and mobilization would be easier and better.
It's worth noting that a workshop on the same agenda has been carried out at Bamenda II Municipality and participants closed the day with commitments to engage in the localization of UNSCR 1325 on WPS. This training has been very timely as it was inline with the International Day of Peace celebrations.
By Bamenjo Petronilla