Remarks by the Brazilian Permanent Representative, Ambassador Sérgio França Danese, at the Peacebuilding Commission meeting on investing in women’s participation throughout the peace continuum - January 31st, 2024

Investing in women's full, equal and meaningful participation in peace processes has proven to be a powerful tool in preventing conflict and avoiding relapse, therefore minimizing the human and financial costs of prolonged conflict. However, it is unfortunate that women's participation in peace efforts is often seen as an imposed agenda.

This is not true.

The very history of the Women, Peace and Security agenda shows that women from the Global South have been at the forefront of the demand for participation since the dawn of the UN.

A Brazilian activist and scientist, Dr. Bertha Lutz, was one of only six female delegates to the San Francisco Conference, where she firmly advocated for the need to include women in the organization's primary objectives to avoid yet another world war.

Until the adoption of resolution 1325 in 2000, women from civil society kept pushing for women's voices to be heard at the Security Council. It took an elected member, Namibia, a country emerging from a hard-fought war of independence, to sponsor this idea and bring a draft resolution forward for consideration by the Council. It is also not unusual that WPS issues are seen as a distraction from the hard questions related to peace and security.

Some corners of societies – in conflict-affected countries and many others – continue to adhere to stereotypical gender roles, whereby women have no place in security forces, parliaments or in the public space as such. In doing so, they keep society from benefitting from women's innovative, often more open perspectives regarding development, security and defense issues.

They also expect women not to have a say in matters that immensely affect them. As the concept note for today's meeting highlights, more than 600 million women and girls live in conflict-affected areas. It is not reasonable to pretend that we can keep them from decision-making in matters of life or death. Instead, we must invest heavily in the participation of women, both civilians and uniformed, along the entire peace continuum.

It can and should effectively transform gendered power dynamics, as the Secretary-General rightly indicated in Action 5 of the New Agenda for Peace.
We must also learn from the past if we want to avoid repeating the same mistakes, increasing military expenditure and watching conflicts generate horrifying numbers of deaths among civilians.

Women are bound to bring different perspectives.

Their action on the ground speaks for itself, as we have so convincingly heard today. Women peacebuilders already make an impact. Our role in the Peacebuilding Commission is to recognize them, amplify their voices and give them the visibility they deserve. With the support from the Peacebuilding Fund, UNDP, the World Food Programme and the UN Population Fund, civil society organizations in Guinea-Bissau, for instance, intensified their participation in the constitutional reform process promoted by the National People's Assembly some years ago.

The Women's Jurists Association held consultations nationwide to underline the importance of mainstreaming gender considerations into the revised version of the constitution.

The PBF has financed projects that pave the way forward. The PBC's Gender Strategy rightly acknowledges that the challenge lies in ensuring a more systematic integration of gender perspectives. We must renew and redouble our efforts to make such integration an even more powerful peacebuilding tool.

Thank you.