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INTERNATIONAL WOMEN LEADERS GLOBAL SECURITY SUMMIT
The “International Women Leaders Global Security Summit” was organized in New York City from November 15-17 2007. This conference was a joint effort of ‘The Annenberg Foundation Trust’ and the ‘White House Project’. The event was co-hosted by Her Excellency Mary Robinson (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights- 1997-2002) and The Right Honourable Kim Campbell (19 th and First female Prime Minister of Canada in 1993). The summit provided women leaders a forum to discuss, evaluate women’s leadership on global security, and endorse meaningful strategies for it. The summit was attended by high held dignitaries, The Right Honourable Helen Clark, Prime Minister, New Zealand, Her Excellency Tarja Halonen, President, Finland, The Most Honourable Portia Simpson Miller, Prime Minister, Jamaica, Her Excellency Dr. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President, Latvia (1999-2007), The Honorable Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State, United States (1997-2001), Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Dr. Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate, Dr. Noleen Heyzer, Executive Director, UNIFEM, Her Excellency Chandrika Kumaratunga, President, Sri Lanka (1994-2005), The Right Honorable Jenny Shipley, Prime Minister, New Zealand (1997-1999) and Ms. Jasmine Whitbread, CEO, Save the Children, United Kingdom to name a few. The summit focused on enhancing the effectiveness of women’s leadership on global security .
If we scan through the history, one would find that beside human loss, property loss and economic squalor, it the women who heavily pay the price of any form of violence and communal unrest. Approximately 80% of today’s civilian casualties are women (Oxfam) and 80% of all refugees and internally displaced people world-wide are women and children (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). W omen often become carers for injured combatants and find themselves unexpectedly cast as the sole parent, manager of the household and caretakers of elderly relatives. Parties to the conflict often rape women with impunity, sometimes using systematic rape as a tactic of terrorism. It is a fact that men and women are touched by war and conflict in different ways, what is clear is that while women have to work hard to retain peace within the home and family in times of conflict, when it actually comes to peace making, they have little involvement in it. Political organisations, no matter which side of the picture they represent, never think of involving women in peace processes. Here’s where they don’t count. But here’s where they should count, for who builds and sustains peace in the home? Clearly the women. They are the ones who know how war and conflict enters and affects their daily lives, and the lives of those close to them. They are the ones who need to be brought in when discussions about a ‘return to normalcy’ are taking place. Yet, hardly anywhere in the world has this been done.
Current events in world affairs illustrate the interdependence of international peace and security and the security of individuals. Policy-making and leadership in international relations require this integrated approach that achieves both human and state security objectives. Despite the fact that women leaders now work at the highest level of government and civil society, they do not yet constitute a critical mass of those formulating security policies around the world. This Summit aimed to change that. It provided a platform for women leaders to participate in this important discussion and to highlight alternative ways to achieve a more secure world. The summit spelled out 3 major objectives :
- To launch a process to amplify the efforts of women leaders and to facilitate a more collective action on global security
- To generate public awareness and support for women’s leadership on global security
- To generate ideas and increased resources for women’s leadership on global security
Keeping in mind these three objectives, the summit identified four issues, which required immediate attention and collective efforts to ensure global security. One of issue of worldwide concern is the ‘economics of insecurity’, which is not only an affront to human dignity, but poses a threat to state security and regional stability. The effect of this insecurity can be explicitly seen in the Sub-Saharan Africa, where people and states are caught in a ‘poverty-conflict-poverty’ trap. The other issue of the summit focused on ‘preventing terrorism’ via transformation of perceptions, priorities, and resulting actions. It was realized that process of preventing terrorism is a long term and incremental one - but possible and required endeavour carried out by both men and women. During the summit, it was discussed that there was a pressing need for women leaders to add their voices and advocate the ‘responsibility to protect’ the civilians from genocide and other crimes against humanity. Besides protection from atrocities, it was discussed that , time has come for women leaders to shoulder the responsibility of protection from ‘climate change’ , which is posing new threats, challenges and risks to the international security. An integrated human, gender and environmental security approach is needed for dealing with the growing threat of climate change, in order to develop appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies.
All the four issues where extensively discussed during the summit, which culminated in a paper “CALL TO ACTION.” The paper describes the pledge taken by the women leaders present at the summit to take the cause further in their own ways and make the dream of effective women leadership on global security a reality.
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