Nineteen years ago today, UN Security Council adopted landmark resolution 1325, which underlines the central role that women must play in preventing and resolving conflict.

The importance of women’s meaningful participation in influencing decision-making and political dialogue has been a key priority raised by SRSG Zahir Tanin during Security Council briefings on Kosovo and was also a focus of the 2019 UN Global Open Day on Women, Peace and Security.

More than 200 representatives from political and civil society institutions across Kosovo and the region attended the seventh Kosovo edition of the United Nations Global Open Day, under the theme ‘Trust-builders and Deal-Makers: Advancing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Kosovo’.

The twin needs to increase the presence of women in high level political processes and for more women taking an active role in all levels of politics in Kosovo were highlighted during this joint event by the United Nations and the European Union.

Some of the recommendations that came out of the day’s discussions include:

• The creation of mechanisms that ensure that future political processes are representative of women’s needs and priorities.
• Greater efforts to implement the Law on Gender Equality, with special care taken to protect the rights of women from non-majority communities – whose discrimination also relates to their minority status.
• Increasing existing gender quotas for MPs as well as proactively including women in political advisory roles in order to encourage women to pursue political careers; with the clear implementation of sanctions in instances where gender quotas are not met.
• Including the needs and concerns of conflict-related sexual violence survivors in the agenda of political processes.
• Fast-tracking the existing initiative for the Regional Commission Tasked with Establishing the Facts about All Victims of War Crimes and Other Serious Human Rights Violations Committed on the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia (RECOM).

You can download the final report of 2019 Global Open Day on Women, Peace and Security in Kosovo here 

2019_global_open_day_final_report.pdf

2019_global_open_day_final_report.pdf

Watch a video of the key moments of the event here: 

Read more:

UN Global Open Day: Time for more women deal-makers in Kosovo political processes

Global Open Day: Lasting peace could be achieved through more women in politics