Stakeholders calls for secured system to promote women in peace, security

By Mnena Iyorkegh, Abuja

On Nov 14, 2024

Stakeholders on women affairs have called for a holistic approach in delivering a secured system that promotes women participation in peace and security in Nigeria.

The call was made at the closing of a three day, Capacity Building Training on Implementation, Monitoring and Reporting of the 3rd National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS), in Abuja, Nigeria.

The National Action Plan (NAP) on women, peace, and security is a plan aimed at addressing the underrepresentation of women in peace processes and the disproportionate impact of violence on women.

Speaking, at the closing ceremony, the Lead Consultant, 3rd edition of the National Action Plan (NAP) also the Vice Chairman UN CEDAW Committee, Geneva, Mrs. Esther Eghobabamien- Mshelia, explained that despite having a NAP, aligned with UN Security council resolution 1325, Nigeria still faces a wide range of security challenges affecting women and girls, which needs for collaborative efforts to addressing the gaps.

“The call to action is collective ownership. If you look at the implementation model, women, peace and security issues belong to everybody. Everybody should look within their mandates and deliver a secure system in Nigeria that promotes women, peace and security in the overall interest of national security. As we are moving into the third NAP, we have been able to identify five major WPS priorities, protracted insecurity, insecurity that is related to infrastructure and financial issues. We also resource linked women, peace and security issues, sexual and gender-based violence, and the issue of coordination and partnership, is something that people now understand better, how they need to work together because no one person can deliver on women, peace and security”, she explained.

Mrs.Eghobabamien- Mshelia, gave an overview of the take-home from the three day capacity building workshop.

“We have had an educative, insightful time working with the states, the different federal agencies. We have now many new agencies that are on board and we have been able to see that our institutions understand the place of women, peace and security in their mandates and the role that they have to play in enabling Nigeria to fulfill its obligations in terms of implementing the UNHCR 1325 and our new third map. Today, there were, new learnings on compliance monitoring and tracking systems and how they can provide better oversight both at federal and at state level down to the local government. A lot of the agencies, and officials understand how to develop their roadmap, how to cost for women, peace and security activities in innovative ways that transform societies, have impact and are sustainable”, she said.

She further explained the modalities put in place to ensure that the 3rd NAP is fully implemented.

“A few new features of this implementation of the third NAP is the joint women, peace and security secretariat, we have present here the office of the head of service, the office of the secretary to the government, we have all the key sectors here so that ownership is at that level and we can all jointly contribute to protecting peace and security for women and men and boys and girls in Nigeria. Also at the lower level, joint committees, sector to sector, people working together to pull resources and their technical capacity to deliver on women, peace and security right down to the local government level.

“At this stage now, we have at least six states that are going to their third NAP, some on their second NAP, so it means it is going down to the grassroots. We have women, peace ambassadors, we have security entities that are more conscious of women, peace and security. We have directors here from state peace commission that are integrating women, peace and security into their budgets and their plans, we have worked with ministries, departments and agencies from the federal level and state ministries of women affairs to basically build their capacity on women, peace and security agenda. So we are making progress”, she explained.

Also speaking, A Women Peace and Security consultant Amy Oyekunle, explained the challenges experienced in the first and second NAP, and the way forward.

“The challenge has always been on the issue of implementation. We have so many of them, we have several and this is the third one. How do you ensure that all the NAP is faithfully and religiously implemented? One of the challenges of the first two is ownership and so when many people hear women they think that oh it only belongs to the ministry of women affairs or you know gender issues but one of the things that we’ve really pointed out in this NAP is that peace and security, women peace and security is everybody’s responsibility and each ministry, each agency whether you are ministry of environment, ministry of agriculture, ministry of defense, they have a role to play in implementing of WPS which is women peace and security”.

Mrs. Oyekunle added that: “The capacity was very low or has always been very low which is why before the NAP is launched the biggest activity for us was to build capacity of each of these so they were intentionally selected, the participants, we selected people that were already in the helm of decision making at the level of legislation. We have engaged with legislators and Perm Secs in different ministries and created the awareness so they know and the final thing is around budgeting. Where there’s no budget, nothing gets done right but it’s not all about adding money for money’s sake, it’s about ensuring that existing budget captures WPS. So we are hopeful that with all of these strategies that we have put in place, there will be a shift in the middle when it comes to implementation of the third national action plan”.

The 3 day capacity building workshop with over one hundred and nine participants from both national and state Ministry Department and Agencies, MDAs on the NAP, called for political inclusion of gender perspective in peace negotiations.