Deputy Inspector Martina de Maria Sandoval Linares, from El Salvador always wanted to help others. Now, working as a UN Police officer, she has found her vocation, far from home in South Sudan. Ms. Linares, whose eight-year-old daughter and family are back in El Salvador, told UN News why the job is so rewarding, despite the sacrifices she makes.
New York, 13 March, 2021
As we mark the second anniversary of Tropical Cyclone Idai, the United Nations is honoured to continue standing in solidarity with the people and Government of Mozambique.
In the aftermath of the unprecedented back-to-back Cyclone Idai and Cyclone Kenneth, I travelled to the country and saw the devastation and recovery efforts firsthand.
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The UN chief on Friday, has strongly condemned the latest mass kidnapping of students in Nigeria, in the country’s northwestern region.
Ten numbers for each year of Syria’s seemingly interminable conflict: the UN’s Humanitarian agency (OCHA) has marked this tragic milestone by highlighting in figures the country’s miserable decade of suffering and loss.
The grim ten-year anniversary of the war in Syria has left 90 percent of the country’s children in need of help, as a triple crisis of violence, economic misery and the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed families to the brink of despair, UNICEF reported on Friday.
The United Nations entity dedicated to protection of women’s rights has voiced deep concerns over “targeted and disproportionate” violence against women being recorded during the crackdown against peaceful protesters in Myanmar.
The Myanmar junta’s brutal response to peaceful protests likely meets the legal threshold for crimes against humanity, a UN-appointed independent rights expert told the Human Rights Council on Thursday.
Conflict drives hunger, and when that turns to famine, that then drives conflict, the UN chief told the Security Council on Thursday, adding that “if you don’t feed people, you feed conflict”.
The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned the violence against peaceful protesters in Myanmar and voiced “deep concern” at restrictions on medical personnel, civil society, labour unions and journalists, as demonstrations continue across the south-east Asian nation against the military takeover last month.
The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned the violence against peaceful protesters in Myanmar and voiced “deep concern” at restrictions on medical personnel, civil society, labour unions and journalists, as demonstrations continue across the south-east Asian nation against the military takeover last month.
Secretary-General António Guterres has underlined the UN’s determination to continue pursuing a negotiated political settlement to the Syrian civil war, a “living nightmare” that has endured for 10 years now.
Over half the Yemen population is facing acute food shortages “with millions knocking on the door of famine”, the UN food relief agency chief said on Wednesday, wrapping up a two-day visit to the country with an urgent plea for peace and funding to help feed vulnerable families.
Disturbing reports have emerged from North Korea - officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) - that people have starved or been executed because of COVID-19 restrictions, a leading rights expert said on Wednesday.
The political transition in Sudan is moving forward, though formation of the legislative council and other important milestones have yet to be achieved, the head of the new UN mission in the country told a virtual meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday.
The United Nations Secretary-General on Monday called for the safe release of hundreds of peaceful protesters trapped by security forces for several hours in residential buildings in the Yangon neighbourhood of Sanchaung.
USG DiCarlo Remarks at the Security Council Arria Formula Meeting “Leading by Example: Ensuring the Full, Equal and Meaningful Participation of Women in UN-led Peace Processes”
Thank you, Ambassador Nason. I am pleased to be here on International Women’s Day to discuss an issue so fundamental to women’s rights.
Let me begin by congratulating Ireland and Mexico on assuming your roles as chairs of the Security Council’s Informal Experts Group on Women, Peace and Security. Your efforts to bring attention today to the issue of women’s participation in peace processes reflect both the seriousness of the challenges we face and the urgency of action required.
Last year, as we marked the 20th anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), the resounding message from women’s activists across the world was clear – far more remains to be done to realise the promise of the women, peace and security agenda.
As the Secretary-General recently reported, women are currently Heads of State or Government in 22 countries, and only 24.9 per cent of national parliamentarians are women. At the current rate of progress, gender equality of Heads of Government level will take another 130 years.
We are, therefore, pleased that this year’s session of the Commission on the Status of Women is devoted to increasing the participation of women in public life – and that includes participation in peace and political processes.
We know that women are essential to identifying durable and inclusive political solutions that can lead to sustainable peace. Yet overcoming the obstacles to their participation – entrenched power politics, patriarchal attitudes and unequal social structures – has no quick fixes.
Comprehensive, long-term efforts are needed from all stakeholders. The United Nations is committed to playing its part.
So you may ask, “What efforts are we making?”
First, we know that we must lead by example.
The Secretary-General is committed to achieving gender parity among UN staff. He has appointed women to serve in over 57 per cent of senior leadership posts in Special Political Missions, including the heads of mission in Afghanistan and Iraq that are the two largest missions.
We have ensured that UN-led and co-led processes consistently include women in mediation support teams. In 2020, 40 per cent of staff working in these teams were women.
And we are committed to meaningful women’s participation in peace processes led by the United Nations. We have made a progress but much more needs to be done.
Second, we are pursuing innovative participation models. In Libya, the UN has facilitated consultations with women’s groups that has led to the inclusion of more women in intra-Libyan dialogues. The UN also ensured 22 percent women’s participation in the 75-person Libyan Political Dialogue Forum meeting last November. The Forum agreed to a new political roadmap with a 30 percent quota for ministers and deputy ministers in governmental agencies. In Yemen, our envoy has held focus groups with over 500 Yemenis, over a third of them women and nearly half youth regarding potential peace negotiations.
There is no substitute for having women at the table, but we have encountered obstacles even in the processes that the UN leads.
To overcome them, we have created women’s advisory boards in Iraq, Syria and Yemen to ensure that women’s voices are taken into account. Members of the Syria advisory group are now sitting at the table in Syria’s Constitutional Committee, which includes 30 percent female membership.
We have strengthened our cooperation with regional women mediator networks. In 2020, this included supporting FemWise deployments to Cote D’Ivoire, Libya, Mali, and South Sudan.
We are also working with international mediators on practical ways to expand women’s participation in peace processes. Since 2013, more than 250 senior envoys, negotiators and experts, from all regions of the world, have participated in the UN High-Level Seminar on Gender-Inclusive Mediation Strategies.
Women’s participation also continues to be a matter of acute concern in peace processes not led by the United Nations.
The Afghanistan peace negotiations that began in September represent a significant step towards peace. Regrettably, women remain underrepresented in both negotiating teams.
The UN has supported the convening of hundreds of Afghan women, over several months, on their priorities for peace negotiations. I travelled to Afghanistan in July 2019 with the Deputy Secretary-General to hear the views of Afghan women on the future of their country.
They were determined to maintain the rights they have gained and eager to lead. They deserve our full support.
And my third and final point - we need sustained funding for our efforts. Every project funded by the UN’s Peacebuilding Fund includes dedicated funding towards women’s empowerment. Since 2018, the Peacebuilding Fund has allocated 40 per cent of its annual total investments towards gender equality initiatives, which in 2020 amounted to $69 million.
Young, marginalized and rural women face additional barriers to their political participation. This is why we have scaled up the Peacebuilding Fund’s Gender and Youth Promotion Initiative from $2.7 million in 2016 to $36.6 million in 2020. In Sudan, these funds will be used to build a diverse, intergenerational group of women leaders from remote, conflict-affected areas to meaningfully engage in peace efforts.
In all these efforts, the UN works closely with partners in pursuit of our common objective of securing women’s participation.
After all, it is clear, that more than 20 years since the adoption of resolution 1325, the hard work of influencing decision-makers, expanding community support for women’s participation, and overcoming structural obstacles, can only be done with the sustained political will, commitment and investment of us all.
Thank you.
Every year, on the 8th of March, the world celebrates International Women’s Day. In 2021, the focus is on “Women in Leadership; Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”.
Before COVID-19, participation of women globally as national parliamentarians had only managed to rise from 11 per cent in 1995 to 25 percent in 2020 and only 21 per cent of government ministers were women in 2020. In business, the proportion...
Hopes placed in the UN and the Member States that serve on the Security Council to take action against leaders of Myanmar’s military coup, are waning fast, the UN Special Envoy for the country warned on Friday.
The United Nations independent human rights expert on Myanmar has called on the Security Council for “decisive and unified action” against the military junta, including targeted sanctions and an arms embargo.
The African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) held its 983rd meeting on the unified role of the African Group (A3) in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on 4 March.
At the opening session, the participants commended the A3 for the continued cohesion in representing Africa’s interests. The participants expressed appreciation for the monthly coordination meetings between the incoming Chairs of the two...
Given the persistent reports of serious human rights violations and abuses in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the UN rights chief on Thursday stressed the urgent need for an objective, independent assessment of the facts on the ground.
Seven years after the Security Council mandated the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons programme, there have been only “limited developments” in the implementation of resolution 2118, passed unanimously in 2013 to bring the country into compliance with its global obligations, the UN disarmament chief said on Thursday.
The Co-chairs of the International Follow-up Committee on Libya (IFCL) Economic Working Group (EU, Egypt, US), with the UN Support Mission to Libya (UNSMIL), express their concern regarding the situation in Libya’s electricity sector. Without a swift allocation of funding to undertake urgent repairs, the electricity situation could worsen from early summer 2021. The Economic Working Group co-chairs note that there are multiple other areas where the...
The United Nations top human rights official, on Thursday, said that the military in Myanmar must halt their “vicious crackdown” on peaceful protestors, amid reports that at least 54 people have been killed since the 1 February coup, 38 of them on Wednesday alone.
Out now! Episode 4 "She Stands For Peace" - Click here: https://unoau.unmissions.org/podcast-series-she-stands-peace...
UN Special Envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, warned on Wednesday that the situation in the country challenges “the stability of the region” and could lead to a “real war”.
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