National Action Plan: Norway commits to implementing its fourth National action plan for WPS with higher goals, improved results framework for annual reporting.
The implementation of our National Action Plan is in full swing. The first internal annual report of this phase shows high levels of activity and adjustments to reflect the new plan’s higher goals. The first official annual report based on an improved results framework is in process. We expect to finalize it by June.
The 2019 annual report is now available.
Norway will also support the development of the second Global Women, Peace and Security Index on Women, Peace and Security, to improve relevance and targeting of WPS as well as conflict prevention efforts, to be launched in October 2019.
The second Global Women, Peace and Security Index on Women, Peace and Security was launched 22 October 2019 in New York, as expected. Support for third index has also been granted, to be launched October 2021.
Additional reading: This resource is available through PRIO.
Financial commitments: Pledges to increase funding dedicated to targeted WPS policies and efforts, including through civil society and the Women, Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF). Its priority countries will be Afghanistan, Colombia, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, Palestine, the Philippines, Syria and South Sudan, as well as the African Union as a regional organization.
We are funding women, peace and security efforts locally, nationally, regionally and internationally. We are supporting the Women, Peace and Humanitarian Fund through a three year agreement, as promised. Decisions on embassy budgets are in process, indicating that specific women, peace and security partnerships will be supported not only in all ten priority countries, but in another ten countries. Gender equality efforts are supported in nearly fifty countries marked by conflict.
Norway provided updates on its WPS financing in its 2019 annual report, including on WILPF activities.
“The Syria Female Journalist Network (SFJN) received support from WILPF to hold a regional meeting with 11 women feminist journalists to strengthen local and regional advocacy for gender-sensitive media reporting, thereby providing a safe space that allowed female journalists to discuss the challenges they face and long-term regional collaboration between female journalists. A solidarity statement with women journalists and human rights defenders in MENA was published during the 16 Days of Activism campaign. A media contacts database was created that contains contact details for women journalists and women human rights defenders from MENA. In Syria, WILPF supported the voices of women leaders working on enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention. They produced a short video highlighting the work of Families for Freedom, a collective of Syrian families demanding freedom for all political prisoners and forcibly disappeared persons in Syria. They also supported Families for Freedom’s presence on the fringe of the Annual Open Debate on Women Peace and Security in 2019.”
Norway pledges to increase the proportion of Norwegian aid to countries in conflict and post-conflict marked with a gender marker with a target of no less than the UN goal of 15 percent.
As for the proportion of our aid benefiting women and girls: A political decision was made in June 2019 to ensure that 50 % of all bilateral aid qualifies for the use of a gender marker. Operationalization is in process.
The proportion and amount of Norwegian bilateral assistance and humanitarian funding for countries affected by war and conflict that are marked ‘women’s rights and gender equality’ have increased.
Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: Mobilize stronger political commitment to protect and assist people at risk and survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, as well as additional financial resources to the response, while highlighting best practices and lessons learned, including through the hostingof the upcoming international conference “Ending sexual and gender-based violence in humanitarian crises” in Oslo in May 2019.
On Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, we made one specific commitment related to humanitarian crises: A successfull conference was held in Oslo in May 2019, resulting in major financial and political commitments.
“WILPF has engaged with relevant actors and raised concerns about aspects of UN Security Council resolution 2467 on sexual violence in conflict, which was adopted in 2019. It has endeavoured to ensure that the resolution will be a powerful new instrument for eradicating conflict-related sexual crimes, preventing such violence through justice and accountability and affirming that a survivor-centred approach must guide every aspect of the response of affected countries and the international community. WILPF reports that the final version of the resolution reflects WILPF’s long standing instrumental role in shifting the global debate towards the root causes of conflict. They state that the resolution can be used to support strategic action, particularly through legal frameworks, something that WILPF has also long advocated. In partnership with the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security, WILPF has launched a commentary on the text of the resolution. This resolution is intended to increase awareness of conflict-related sexual violence among peace negotiators, particularly in UN-led peace processes.” https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/1e3345054cdd4fa1ad7c915dd0ef673d/norway-annual-report-wps-2019-2022-final.pdf
Norway will support the finalization of the all-of-mission handbook with and for the UN on preventing and responding to conflict-related sexual violence, for use in UN operations and to be launched this summer.
We did support the finalization of the all-of-mission handbook with and for the UN on preventing and responding to conflict- related sexual violence, for use in UN operations. There have been some delays, but it was soft launched in October 2019, and will be rolled-out in missions this year.
The handbook is available here: https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020.08-UN-CRSV-Handbook.pdf
Peacekeeping: Support a study on the impact of women’s participation in peacekeeping, to be finalized the spring of 2020.
We are supporting a study on the impact of women’s participation in peacekeeping, as promised. There have been delays due to illness, but we are making efforts to ensure that it is finalized within the coming months.
Norway, in partnership with Canada, is pledging the publication of a comprehensive and publicly available tool to identify and formulate strategies to address gender-specific barriers within Member States’ military and police organizations, in association with the Elsie Initiative for Women in Peace Operations. Norway and Canada have provided funding to the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) to develop and publish this Barrier Assessment Methodology, which Member States will be able to use to inform policies and practices to reduce barriers for uniformed women,and to increase women’s meaningful participation in UN peace operations.
In partnership with Canada, we are supporting the development and testing of a comprehensive barrier assessment methodology, which will identify universal and context-specific barriers to women’s meaningful participation in UN peace operations and in a country’s military and police organizations. We expect that a case study to test the methodology on the Norwegian armed forces will start shortly.
Mediation: Together with the other regional networks of women mediators, the Norwegian branch within the framework of the Nordic Network of Women Mediators will work to strengthen synergies and explore opportunities for cooperation and launch a global alliance of such networks.
Finally, together with the other regional networks of women mediators, we have worked to strengthen synergies and explore opportunities for cooperation. A Global Alliance of such networks was launched in September 2019, and we are working on follow-up and common action points.
In Nigeria, the Women’s League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) launched the Nigerian Women Mediators Collaborative Initiative (NWMCI), which aims to identify, train, and help women mediators to prevent and mediate in conflicts in the country, including election-related conflicts and violence. The mediation network succeeded in quickly intervening to peacefully resolve clashes related to the presidential elections in 2019 in Lagos, FCT, Enugu and Anambra states. WILPF-Nigeria also jointly organised and led the training of 17 mediators in the network together with the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) on gendered and inclusive mediation. https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/1e3345054cdd4fa1ad7c915dd0ef673d/norway-annual-report-wps-2019-2022-final.pdf
Further information about the Nordic network of women mediators is available in Norway’s national review for Beijing+25 (pg 86).