Ambassadorial-level Peacebuilding Commission
Women in Peace and Security: Complementarity of the Roles of Uniformed Women Peacekeepers and Women Peacebuilders
Statement by Latvia
Mr Chair, Excellencies, Colleagues,
Last month we marked the 22nd anniversary since the adoption of the Women, Peace and Security agenda - a landmark resolution that recognized importance of women’s leadership to achieve international peace and security, and their contribution to conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding.
Latvia strongly believes that empowerment of women and inclusive participation is an essential foundation for a peaceful, secure and sustainable society. Therefore, gender equality and rights of women are also Latvia’s longstanding priorities at the UN. Latvia firmly supports the WPS agenda as a member of the CSW, and, starting of January, we will play active role in the Executive Board of UN Women. Equally, we highly appreciate this discussion of the PBC today, as we believe WPS agenda should be one of the key pillars guiding our peacebuilding efforts.
We share the view expressed today by the distinguished briefers that the efforts to ensure women’s role in peacekeeping and peacebuilding must be stepped up in all conflict and post-conflict situations. In this regard, we support the commitment demonstrated in the Action for Peacekeeping Plus (A4P+) policy to streamline the gender perspective in all aspects of peacekeeping. Some important progress has been achieved in the recent years. However, as stated in the latest Secretary General’s report on WPS, “underrepresentation of women in the military component of multilateral operations remains stark”.
Therefore, there can be no complacency when it comes to pursuing our common goal to increase women’s participation in the UN peacekeeping efforts. It is important to improve gender balance in all positions, including middle and senior level. To achieve this, we need to facilitate environment conducive to broader participation of women in every position of peacekeeping missions. Furthermore, we should not only increase the protection of peacekeepers against security threats, but also maintain focus on accountability of peacekeepers, not least with respect to any forms of gender-based and sexual violence, abuse and exploitation.
We should also continue to facilitate conditions conducive for women to play central role in peace-brokering and reconciliation efforts. We welcome focused activities in this field, including in the Central African Republic, by the PBF, which Latvia will continue to support as a donor.
Latvia recognizes that efforts to involve women in peacekeeping and peacebuilding begin at the national level. Latvia has demonstrated strong track-record in this regard. 20% of the personnel recruited by the National Armed Forces of Latvia last year were women. Overall, women constitute 16% of our armed forces personnel. Meanwhile, in the State Police women constitute 30% of the personnel. We stand ready to share our expertise of maximizing opportunities for equal participation of women in security and defence sector.
As this is the final meeting scheduled for the PBC this year, it makes this also the last meeting for Latvia in this body in our current term. I would like to use this opportunity to thank you chair and your team for your sincere efforts leading the work of the PBC through this challenging year. Equally, I would like thank ASG Spehar and the whole PBSO team for providing such a solid support to the PBC member states in our effort to advance peacebuilding agenda. And finally, let me thank all the members of the PBC, which engaged in our deliberations in good faith. Our term may be concluding, but our determination to work with you all to build resilience, to advance human rights, gender equality, as well as accountability remains steadfast.
I thank you.