IWTC Women's GlobalNet #214

Initiatives and Activities of Women Worldwide
By Anne S. Walker and Karen Banks


December 11, 2002

WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY ACTIVITIES TO MARK SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF SC RESOLUTION 1325
Also
DEBATE ON POSSIBLE FIFTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN IN 2005.
.

The second anniversary of Security Council Resolution1325: Women, Peace and Security was marked at UN headquarters in New York in October 2002 by many activities undertaken by Governments, UN agencies and the NGO Working Group on Women Peace and Security.* Activities included:

-An "Arria Formula" dialogue between women from conflict zones and
members states of the Security Council. Arria Formula meetings are an opportunity for NGOs to meet and talk with the Security Council.

- An open session on women, peace and security at the Security Council at which the Secretary Generals Report (as requested by Resolution 1325) was presented to the Council
-
-An Experts Assessment on Women War and Peace commissioned by UNIFEM and launched in October as part of the second anniversary celebrations. This 160 page publication is Volume 1 of a 2 volume 2002 edition of UNIFEM's bi-annual "Progress of the World's Women", and is now available through Women, Ink at: E-mail: wi-@womenink.org or through our website at http://www.womenink.org.

-Release by the NGO Working Group of a monitoring tool: "Two Years On"

-Several workshops by the Department of Peace Keeping Operations and UNDP

Follow up advocacy work by NGOs and friendly governments through
discussions and dialogues in October has lead many to privately call
this month "The Women's Month" at the Security Council. All of these
efforts culminated in a Presidential Statement by the SC President,
Ambassador H.E. Mr. Martin Belinga-Eboutou, Permanent Representative of Cameroon to the United Nations. For a copy of this important statement, contact Isha Dyfan, IWTC, at: ishad-@iwtc.org.

* The NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security is comprised of the following organizations: Hague Appeal for Peace (HAP); Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF); International Women's Tribune Centre (IWTC); Women's Caucus for Gender Justice on the International Criminal Court (WCGJ); Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children (WCRWC); and International Alert (IA).

DEBATE ON POSSIBLE FIFTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN IN 2005.

1. WIDE WEBSITE
The women of WIDE in Europe have now set up a website to encourage an expanded discourse on the pros and cons of holding a Fifth World
Conference on Women in 2005. Go to http://www.eurosur.org/wide/UN/WCW.htm and read through the letters and comments already posted. Add your thoughts by writing to: Barbara Specht, Information Officer, Women in Development Europe (WIDE), Rue du Commerce 70, 1040 Brussels, BELGIUM. Tel: (32-2) -545.90.71. Fax: (32-2) 512.73.42. Email: bs.w-@xs4all. Website: http://www.eurosur.org/wide.

2. AWID INVIITES YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN AN ONLINE
Received from the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID)

"AWID's 9th International Forum, "Reinventing Globalization", held in
Guadalajara, Mexico in October 2002, fostered the ongoing and critical
debate of whether we, as an international feminist movement, should be concentrating our energies on yet another world conference. Joanna Kerr, Executive Director of AWID, stated at the opening plenary that she personally does not support a fifth world conference on women given the effort and resources required merely to defend the gains made in previous UN Conferences. Do women worldwide agree?"

"We at AWID, would like to invite and engage you in a timely and ongoing
dialogue around the pros, cons and alternatives to the proposed 2005
Conference. This four-week online discussion will be moderated and will
include weekly summaries and discussion topics relevant to the
individual postings and contributions made throughout the week. To
participate please subscribe by sending a message to lis-@awid.org.
Please leave the subject line blank and write "subscribe
5worldconferencewomen" (without quotes) in the text of the message.
Contributions can be made in either French, Spanish and English."

SPECIAL NOTE:
I would like to take this opportunity of thanking all those who wrote
such extraordinary things in response to a call that went out in a
Special Notice sent to IWTC Women's GlobalNet recipients while I was
away running a workshop in Ghana!! Using all manner of stealth and other strategies, the staff here at IWTC sent the bulletin out quite
unbeknowns to me, even removing my two personal email addresses so that I wouldn't know what was happening. So the clothes-line at the Holiday Peace Party on Monday night was laden with wonderful thoughts and writings that overwhelmed me more than I could ever say. Again, my thanks, and best wishes in all that you are doing. I will keep in touch from Australia.

The IWTC Board of Directors has nominated Dr Vicki J. Semler, IWTC
Associate Director for the past 25 years, as IWTC's next Executive
Director, and with her will remain IWTC's team of Alice Quinn
(USA/Financial Coordinator and Manager of Women, Ink) Isha Dyfan (Sierra Leone/Programme Director, Women, Peace and Security), Yasna Uberoi (India/Women, Ink.), Mary Wong (USA/Women, Ink.), Yolande Atwater (Cameroon/Bookkeeper) and Anne S. Walker (Australia/Special Projects Coordinator).


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