By Princess-Ekwi Ajide, Abuja
The ECOWAS Commission has commenced a three-day in-country capacity building workshop for national stakeholders and focal persons on the Continental Results Framework (CRF) for monitoring and reporting on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda in Abuja, Nigeria.
The programme has participants drawn from foreign development partners, civil society organizations, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Women and Social Development, state government ministries of women affairs, Security Institutions, other Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.
In her speech, the Minister of Women Affairs, Barrister Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye who was represented by the Director of Women Development in the ministry, Mrs. Funke Oladipo, stated that since Nigeria’s domestication of UNSCR-1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the Ministry had in collaboration with key stakeholders continued to implement initiatives identified in the second national Plan and is currently developing its third edition.
The Minister said, the Ministry has also sustained its support to women peacebuilders, and survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in their demands for justice and pushing for women’s meaningful participation in peacebuilding processes.
Earlier in her opening remarks, the Director of Humanitarian and Social Affairs, ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Sintiki Ugbe, said the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on October 31, 2000, established the global agenda on women, peace and security recognizing the disproportionate impact of violent conflict on women and girls, under-representation of women in formal peace processes and importance of mainstreaming gender perspective in peace and security architecture.
Dr. Sintiki pointed out that the simplified Continental Results Framework (CRF) was developed to serve as a systematic tool for monitoring and reporting on the WPS agenda.
According to her, ECOWAS has simplified the tool to make it user-friendly adding that the purpose of the training is to build the capacity of stakeholders to utilize the tool to provide the needed data and information to be used for advocacy and resource mobilization in West Africa.
The representative of the GIZ-EPSAO Project Ms. Tamwakat Golit expressed the organization’s commitment to assisting ECOWAS in achieving just and strong societies in the West African region through its Feminist Development Policy, which aims at eliminating structures that discriminate against women, girls, and the marginalized.
