By Hannah Dadzie
Facebook: Hannah Pinky Ama Dadzie
Twitter: @DadziePinky
The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) has launched an advocacy guideline to help address issues concerning women, as well as peace and security in the sub region.
Speaking at a lecture series in Accra, Deputy Executive Director of WANEP, Levinia Addae-Mensah said women contribute in many informal ways to conflict resolution, management and peace building, but they are always poorly represented in both formal and informal peace processes.
She said continuous conflict mediation efforts on the Continent requires the active participation of women.
“WANEP has been working on women’s peace and security since its foundation. It has been one of our cornerstones, in terms of responding to issues around peace and stability in the region. And one of the things that has been clear over the years is that even though there’s been a kind of momentum on increasing women’s participation or protection through various resolutions, continental and globally, we find out that in terms of the achievement they are quite minimal and not very much sustainable”, Mrs Addae- Mensah said.
According to WANEP the advocacy guideline and maiden lecture series have become imperative considering the lack of research on the implications of COVID-19 on women, peace and security, WPS agenda.
The two-day lecture will provide the platform to harness knowledge and experience of gender experts, academia and practitioners on how the pandemic is impacting on the actualization of the WPS Agenda in the face of dwindling resources.
Deputy Executive Director of WANEP, Levinia Addae-Mensah said although the COVID-19 has unearthed opportunities, it has also posed significant challenges to the implementation and attainment of peace and security building on the continent.
“The Lecture series is also to bring more voices to women issues, we realized during the Covid lockdown women were abused because they didn’t get that kind of protection, so the advocacy guideline which WANEP has been developing since last year, we felt it was an opportune time to launch it so that it can help in the process of trying to advocate, because we realised there is gap in advocacy, specifically women, peace and security”. She added
Director of Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Gender and Children and Social Protection, Mawutor Ablo said women must be allowed to participate in peace negotiations, since he believes this will help bring peace and security in the sub region.
“I think the Advocacy Document that has been launched will really facilitate the issue of women peace and security, more especially when the various countries have signed up to the UNSCR 1325, which is about women, peace and security. We must identify the gaps and work collectively”, Mr. Ablo noted.
Delivering the keynote address on the implications of Covid-19 on attainment of the WPS Agenda; the place of Policy Advocacy, Ms Antonia Ngabala-Sodonon said the Socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on the situation of women has been underreported.
She called for a stronger framework to address future threats, adding that women should be involved in international peacekeeping to bring change in the sub region.
A Representative of the United Nations Development Programme UNDP, Dr. Edward Ampratwum commended WANEP and pledged his organization’s support to involve women in peace and security building.
The Lecture is dubbed, “the Pathways to achieving SDG Goal Five in the Post-COVID-19 era, challenges and prospects. Representatives were from Senegal, Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Mali and other African countries.
