 Good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to everyone who is joining us for this anniversary event on Facebook Live. My name is Susan Stigant and I'm the Director of Africa Programs at the United States Institute of Peace. I am delighted to welcome you to today's event to commemorate the 21st anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 for Women, Peace and Security. Today we are so pleased to co-host this important event with the U.S. Department of State Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues. We will reflect on lessons learned since the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and we are grateful for the partnership of the Office of Global Women's Issues today and in our ongoing work. Today's program is focused on hearing the experience, expertise, and insights of tremendous women who are so active in bringing the Security Council Resolution to life. For those joining us online, we invite you to be part of the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag WPS in action. So now I am delighted to introduce Kat Fodovat, Senior Official for the State Department Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues. Kat will moderate today's fireside chat. As the Senior Official in the Office of Global Women's Issues, Ms. Fodovat leads a team of gender experts promoting gender equality efforts, including support of women, peace and security, countering violent extremism, promoting women's economic empowerment, and combating gender-based violence. Kat, thank you again for the partnership and over to you for today's event. Thank you so much, Susan, for that kind introduction. As Susan said, my name is Kat Fodovat, and I am the Senior Official in the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Department of State. Welcome to all of those who are watching live on Facebook. Hello, and to all those who will be watching this recording later. I want to share my thanks to Susan and our partners at the U.S. Institute of Peace for co-hosting this event today. We are so very excited to have this important discussion on the heels of the 21st anniversary of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325. My office has the mandate to integrate a gender lens across the formulation and conduct of U.S. foreign policy. This means we work closely across the Department to empower women and girls through U.S. diplomacy, partnerships, and programs. Women, Peace, and Security are one of the administration's top priorities. So what is WPS? In short, Women, Peace, and Security, or WPS, focuses on the safe and meaningful participation of women in all aspects of conflict prevention, resolution, and post-conflict recovery by empowering them to lead, equipping them with the necessary skills to succeed, and providing them with safe access to opportunities, decision-making fora, and resources. We know the devastating disproportionate impact of conflict and disaster on women and girls. They exacerbate existing inequalities and systematically target women and girls with sexual violence. Despite this, women remain critically underrepresented in efforts to prevent and resolve conflict and impose conflict peacebuilding and recovery efforts. The United States passed the Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017, making it the first country in the world with comprehensive legislation addressing these issues. The corresponding U.S. strategy on WPS released in 2019 is a whole-of-government approach to addressing WPS. And subsequently, the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, as well as USAID, launched respective WPS implementation plans. There have also been a few exciting WPS developments I want to highlight here. Back in July, the United States joined UN Women's WPS Humanitarian Action Compact. This compact aims to bring together the global, regional, national, and local efforts to advance the WPS agenda and move the conversation forward. At the end of October, the White House released the United States first-ever national strategy on gender equity and equality. The gender strategy, as we call it, underscores the U.S. government's commitment to advancing the rights and opportunities of women and girls, LGBTQI plus persons in all their diversity, both in the United States and around the world. It's cementing our long-standing belief that gender equity and equality are both immoral and strategic imperative. You can find a copy of the strategy on the White House website. Now, I want to turn to our honored guest, who I'm also huge fans of, Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, M. R. H. Rayori, who are true WPS champions to reflect on this topic. Ambassador Soderberg has over 30 years of experience in foreign policy, serving on four presidential campaigns in the United States Senate, in the White House, and in the United Nations. In 1997, President Clinton appointed her to serve as the alternate representative to the United Nations as a presidential appointee with the rank of ambassador, a position she held during the passage of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in the year 2000. And that is where I would like to start the discussion. Ambassador Soderberg, you have had firsthand experience on historical moment and had a front-row seat in the lead up to the adoption of UNSCR 1325. Could you share a little bit about your reflections from that process and experience? I think you're muted. Sorry, Ambassador Soderberg. There you go. I think you're still muted. Apologies. Okay. I think I'm unmuted now. So first of all, thank you so much to the State Department, USIP, for putting together this wonderful event, Katrina Fotovat, with your work in the Office of Global Women's Issue doing such important work, and Susan, your work, both with NDIN with the US Institute of Peace. Marie, it's a great pleasure to share this event with you. We look forward to a really wonderful discussion. I remember well the lead up to the adoption of 1325. I was the alternate rep, and we were in many, many meetings up until the passage of it. The women's groups were unbelievable in supporting it and demanding it. And eventually, all the men around the table decided to go around it. And I remember giving our speeches as it was being adopted. And looking at the only other woman on the table was the perm rep from Jamaica. But looking at, you know, there are all these men, after men, after men giving speech of the need to put women at the table. And it was an honor to raise my hand in voting for the passage of 1325. We've come a long way since then, but there are still far from parity for women at the table, both in legislatures around the world and peacekeeping missions at peace making tables. And we know that when women are at the table, the solutions are just better. So we need, progress has been made, but we are very far from parity. And equality means 50%, not 5%, not 10%, not 15%. Thank you, Ambassador Soderbergh. I want to get a little bit more into that. What was the hope, the long-term goal when the UN Security Council passed 1325? And do you feel we have reached that vision? It clearly needs a lot more work, but just wanted to get your feedback on that. Well, in 2000, the, I think, world looked back at all the problems of the decades of the 90s, the wars in Haiti and Bosnia and Rwanda. And we were looking at whether or not to establish the responsibility to protect. What could we do? And it was very clear that without gender equality, you're not going to have peace. And what all of the study shows are that our challenges simply cannot be solved without taking women into account or without women at the table crafting solutions. Women are key to coming to solutions that last longer, to making sure that solutions involve those most vulnerable. And by taking women into account, we get better results. That goes for not just conflicts, but also slowing down climate change, managing globalization, addressing poverty, and even combating the causes of terrorism. I've seen this around the world in my work with reaching peace in Northern Ireland. It was the women who saw the possibilities for peace. I'm now working in Kosovo, and there's great strides in trying to have women at the table in negotiating peace and lasting solutions and to have more representation in government. But we know the solutions, but we don't have the will to make sure that women have equality. And I think the importance of this panel and all the people watching is to recommit ourselves to do that and demand action from those in power to make sure that they put women at the table. So how would you rate the progress on the implementation of 1325? I mean, it's been 25, 21 years since after the passage. And how would you really rate the progress? Not great. I think if you see, we're two decades after 1325, the UN's own studies find that the few actors have fully implemented the commitments. There's no hard timetables. We have an increasingly militarized peace and security agenda that fails to uphold women's human rights, economic and social rights. The UN has criticized the $2 trillion in military expenditures, which have nearly doubled in the last 25 years, and calls for shifting some of that into a gender equality and women's empowerment. The UN own target to airmark 50% of all peace building funds to gender equality is not been met. Only 2% of the fragile states target gender equality as a principal objective. Only 5% of the military personnel on UN peacekeeping missions are women. And just the statistics go on and on and on. 23% of UN negotiated brokered peace negotiations have women negotiators. Women are still less than 20% of parliamentary seats. And on top of that, COVID has made it much harder. Women are still the subject of violence both in home and out. We see that dramatically increase during the pandemic. We've seen women, the first to lose their job, taking on more of the household chores. Women are bearing the brunt of the pandemic. So I'm hoping that as we emerge from this pandemic, people recognize that women bear the brunt of conflict. They're also the solution to conflict and recommit ourselves to finally achieving gender equality. At the current weight we're doing, it's going to be 100 to 150 years before we have equality as heads of state up till 27, these seven that we have equality in parliament. We can't wait any longer. Let's use these anniversaries to hold our governments accountable and say, where are the women? I couldn't agree more. I think this is a perfect opportunity to use this anniversary to make sure that we are making some progress. So where do you think we go from here? What are some of the key lessons we still need to learn in order to make progress on women, peace and security for the next 20 years? Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm working here in Kosovo, which is the second newest country behind South Sudan. And what we see is the women, peace and security, they have to be expanded beyond security institutions, narrow definitions of peace to the broader concept that women hold. It's got to be a framework that people understand the linkages between education, health, justice, and all people's security from all types of violence, structural, gender-based, race-based. And in Kosovo, what we're seeing is three important avenues that I think work and people could emulate around the world. We're preparing more women for elected office so they can get to that table, breaking the barriers to power for all women, regardless of their age, to sit at the table. You can't count on, we need to break down the barriers that are objecting to women being at the table. It's not just gender, but it's also age, class, and ethnicity. And lastly, we can't do this without the men. We need to engage men allies so that they understand that they will succeed better if women are at the table. And I think those lessons can be applied with New Vigor across all of these countries that are listening today. Well, what do you think the United States role should be? Just given your past experience and certainly in the countries that you've been working on most recently, what do you see the role for the United States in promoting WPS? Well, I remember very distinctly when Hillary Clinton went to Beijing. I was at the White House at the time and kind of established a very powerful call for women to have an equal role in society. And I think the U.S. simply has to lead. We are still a superpower. We're not all powerful, but when the U.S. takes a stand and leads other countries, it makes it easier for them to follow us. So I think our leadership at the U.N. has been important, but I think we need to empower offices like yours, Susan, empower our Secretary of State to make sure that everything we do has a gender lens. Climate change are the women at the table. Peace negotiations are the women at the table. I think President Biden has made a strong commitment to appoint women to strong positions in his government. And we need to hold all of our governments accountable. Man panels where there's no women on the table, no U.S. official or any official should be part of. There's a gender lens to everything. And I think the U.S. could help lead that conversation and drive that agenda. And very much through Susan, your office work through institutions like the U.S. IP, my own organization, the National Democratic Institute, it's important to make sure that everything goes through a gender lens. And again, I'll just reiterate it's the importance for men to also be our strong allies. Thank you so much, Ambassador Soderbergh, for that enlightening discussion on women, peace and security and the U.N. Council Resolution 1325. And your hands-on experience is just being there. You are just so fantastic. And now living too. Thank you. Civil Society plays a central role in the WPS agenda and in advocating for local ownership of decision-making processes as well as contextually appropriate solutions to peace and security. In other words, no conversation about WPS is complete without the inclusion of civil society. With that in mind, I'm very excited to welcome Mari Traori. My office has the pleasure of working with Mari through our women preventing violent extremism program with U.S. IP. And I'm delighted to have her join for this discussion. Mari comes to U.S. IP with 20 years of professional experience, providing technical and policy support to organizations such as International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, and Planetary National. Mari is committed to promoting local development and seeking sustainable, convincing solutions to improve the living conditions of grassroots communities. Mari, it is a pleasure to have you here today. I want to talk to you about your work in Mali. A key element to women, peace, and security is localization. The idea that larger peace and conflict mediation effort should be informed by local perspectives. How can the women, peace, and security agenda sufficiently incorporate local perspectives? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Very much for that question. I am Mari Traori. I'm the program officer for WPB in Mali. I'm very humbled to be here with you today to talk about the resolution 1325 of the United Nations. Well, from my experience, I think that the integration of local aspects in the resolution 1325 is very important. We need to ensure that there's an ownership of the action plan at the grassroots level. Because, well, from what I have observed in these communities, the communities in the local areas are not well informed of the implementation process of the action plan of the resolution 1325. That's on one hand. On the other hand, we need to ensure that we can truly transition, taking into account the aspirations of those at the grassroots level. Because everyone agrees unanimously that resolution 1325 is for women, to ensure that women can fully participate in conflict resolution and peace building. If this is to be true, we know very well that in our current context, and this is me referring to my country, we are in a situation where the country is considered as a hot spot of humanitarian, political, and social crisis. So conflicts continue in such a way that these weakens the capacity for women to act. And if we do not involve them at the local communities, and it is most these grassroots communities that are affected when it comes to conflict. When we talk about the violations, it's at the grassroots level that this is really heightened. And then these then grows from the grassroots level to the regional and international level. Now, for us to have a proper integration of this local aspect, these women need to take ownership, not women and men, because you see generally we work together. They need to take ownership of the action plan, and they need to understand what they're supposed to do with it. And for us to have this support mechanism, we just we cannot just make the documents available to them. No, we need to do the capacity and support them so that they can truly understand the context of the resolution. That's on one hand. Then we need to really show them how to implement the activities of the action plan of the resolution, because it is with them that they would be then be able to understand what their problems are, and then find a way to be able to link this to the local problems and then know how to act in conflict areas and also regarding peace building. And generally, these women are not really involved in the process. We need to get them involved. We need to build their capacities, we need to support them. And we also need to ensure that when we refer to the four pillars of the resolution, which is prevention, help, we need to really develop actions in line with this because you see in a conflict situation, it is not easy for the women or the local community to act and obtain results in line with the actions of the resolution 1325. This is where we then need to design actions, activities that would help these women to be able to act in order to achieve the desired results. We also need to reassure these women. We need to ensure that they are safe. We need to guarantee their safety so that they can really work in a collegial manner with proper coordination in order to implement concrete actions that would really help their action plan of the 1325 resolution to achieve these results. Another thing is we need to bring these women together in networks and ensure that they can communicate because they are at a certain point where they do not have enough information through some media. But if we can set up a collaboration framework, this would help them to get much more information and it would create a communication space, a space for training and a space for capacity building. Such networks are very important for these women to take ownership of information in relation to the 1325 resolution and in order to be able to act. So, I'm not sure this is what needs to be done regarding the grassroots level so that we can truly help these women. There are some fantastic examples that I can share with you from Mali regarding the implementation of the USIP project in Mali. We are working in a situation where we try to start from the bottom level and then move up. We started with a bottom-top approach and not a top-to-bottom approach. We started from the bottom to probably understand what goes on at the grassroots level, inform the women of the situation, piece building and then also support them and find out how they can truly act in order to get their voices heard regionally or internationally. This work was done and we carried out a lot of capacity building training. We carried out a lot of community dialogues and national dialogues and you see the national dialogues were truly an opportunity for us to see that these women have the capacity and the necessary expertise to get involved, to participate actively in the implementation of the resolution. So, this is the outline that I have tried to describe. Because you see, these women have been able to carry out a national dialogue following the experience that they got at the grassroots level. So, can you then imagine how the transition was done from a bottom to the top level? They made fantastic presentations. They were able to identify the problems that they faced on the field and they were able to communicate this. They were also able to define an action plan and send it to partners. It was very fantastic because we did not really expect the women at the local level, grassroots level to properly communicate their aspirations regarding a crisis context. So, you see, we always need to start from the grassroots level for the resolution to really have sustainable results. So, this, and I'm not sure is what I have to say regarding the integration of local perspectives in the implementation of the action plan. Thank you. Thank you, Mari. In your current work as a trainer and project manager in Mali, you focus on several areas, including women's leadership. And despite years of focus on women's participation in leadership, we still see women shut out of important discussions and meetings related to security conflict and reconciliation. How do you think we should overcome that barrier? And what is missing from the international community's efforts when promoting women's meaningful participation? See, regarding this point, we need to understand that different countries have different situations, different contexts. And if I'm supposed to take Mali's situation as an example, you see, for women to truly be in this, for women to truly be involved, we need to develop initiatives that will help them to get involved. You see, there are obstacles, there are social cultural obstacles. And so, this is a very delicate aspect, particularly in the African context. And so, we need to be able to distinguish these different areas and regions. I know that, yes, there are member states that are working to providing support to the action plan of the resolution. But as Nancy said, you see, we have not made a lot of progress, because this is due to a lot of issues, yes, social cultural barriers. Mari, did we lose you? I think we'll give her one minute. I think she might be gone for a little while. It's more that our internet might be unstable. Okay. Ambassador Zahra, can we turn back to you then? Of course, of course. I'd like to talk to you a bit more about just some of your insightful recommendations as we getting back into the localization discussion. What are some best practices that you have seen? Certainly, either from the Kosovo experience or Northern Ireland, I know that a lot of the getting the women's voices into the conversation is so impactful and so vital. I don't know if you have any suggestions or best practices that you would like to discuss. I've seen it. I've been working in peace and conflict for many decades now and time and time and time and time again, whether it's peace processes or government, when women are at the table, you just get better outcomes. It's not that one or better than the other, but women just bring a different perspective. They know firsthand the challenges of violence are the ones who live with the families that are affected by that, by economic downturns and obviously war and peace. But also, the pandemic shows it all. They're the ones who are bearing the brunt of this. If you look at all of the studies around the world, just one that I happen to know from the UN, that when women are at the peace table, their participation increases the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years by 20% and 35% over 15 years. Higher levels of gender equality mean that you're less likely to have a society resort back to violence. Here in Kosovo, the women are driving change. 61% of the women are the ones who voted for a major change in government here in Kosovo. They're standing up to fight corruption. Patriarchy. Kosovo is a small country. It's had two women presidents. It's got two women prime ministers, six ministers, and women are beginning to get elected here without the quota. Quotas around the world to make sure that at least 30, ideally 50% of women come out of elections can make a huge difference as well. And I think we've seen this here that if you empower women, you get longer and lasting changes. We're very proud of what we call the Pristina principles. Pristina is the capital of Kosovo and former president Yayaga convened in 2012 a sort of guidelines and principles to try and eliminate women's barriers at full political and economic participation. I would commend that to everyone on this end to take a look at that. And what you see is that women can't do it on their own. As I said before, you need men to bring them into the participation at political parties. You need men to bring them into their networks. Women tend to be marginalized from the power structure. And what you need is to make sure that you have it driven from the top and also the bottom up. Women know what they want. And so empowering that kind of bottom up and top down approach to address the barriers that keep women from participating fully in public life, from being heard, from leading, being organized in activists, municipal leaders, all the way up to the highest level of the government. And so we at NDI have a program to accelerate the pace of change in joining the UN's effort to do that, to try and end gender discrimination by 2030. That sounds like a long time away, but it's a very ambitious goal. And I would encourage all of those of you on the Zoom to look at your own societies and see where you can plug in and make a difference. Women activists reach out and get some men to recognize that this is an important gender. If you're in power, offer to mentor young women who don't think that they can play on that league. And that person-to-person participation can certainly have an importance. You see this across the Balkans, but also across Africa, Latin America. And even in the United States, at local levels, it's as important as at the national level. I think to your point about the inclusion of men, we've seen time and time again where there is conflict and during the midst of a conflict, they talk about deferring gender issues till after we have security and after security is stabilized. And you brought up some of the points about effectiveness and making sure that women are at the table because peace negotiations and peace treaties last longer. What in your opinion has been one of the discussions or points that has really kind of helped motivate it and incentivize to make sure that women were brought to the table? And how do we motivate a lot of the men in those power positions to make sure that's included? There has to be a recognition that there's a problem and that the current system and cycle that ends up resorting to one conflict after another, that cycle needs to be broken. I think most dramatically I saw it in Northern Ireland when President Clinton was determined to try and make peace process. We ended up and Hillary Clinton then as first later and later as Secretary of State certainly saw this firsthand. It's what you see all across the world. The women saw the possibilities for peace before the men did and certainly before the political leaders did. And it's because they bore the vast majority of the front of it. They're the ones who dealt with families that were in crisis. So their men were in prison. The men were in prison and of course many who lost their lives in that conflict. Two or three hundred people a year were dying. I don't really think about that today but at the beginning of it, it was the women who demanded peace, who began the people to people cross community discussions that made people realize that peace was possible. So women bear the brunt but also see the possibilities for peace. And if you look at what's happening in the world today, I was reading in some articles about the tragedy that's unfolding in Ethiopia today. It's all the men that are out there just forging this conflict and the women who are bearing the brunt time and time again, same in Yemen. And I think what can galvanize a change is outside intervention that lets women know that they're heard and encouraging those men at the table that they will only succeed if they put women at the table. And it's not a quick fix. It can take a time's generation but then in other times it can happen very quickly. So I think giving young women the hope from abroad or even within their own society with more powerful women that their voice can be heard and they too deserve a seat at the table, no one's going to give it to them. They have to push for it. And outside forces can help them get there but without that drive from the bottom up and top down and changes very, very hard. Well, I want to thank you, Ambassador Sotoberg, for just your inspiration, your continued leadership and activism, just being a champion on women, peace and security. Do you have any final thoughts that you would like to share with the audience today? Well, I want to commend Marie for the hard work she's doing out in Mali. I'm sorry that we lost the second half of her comments but we had a chance to speak a little bit before this program and I'm just so impressed with everything that she has done. And I just want to thank the USAP for the very important work that you do. And of course, Susan, your office at the State Department, the commitment from the US to doing this really makes a huge difference. And I'm honored to be part of this program and to just remind the audience of the possibilities for peace when women are at the table. I was like the quote by John F. Kennedy that said, you know, some women, that's a different quote. Let me come back to the, basically, I was about to say that George Bernard Shaw quote that some men see things as they are and ask why others ask why not. So I'm always with the figure out what's possible is a strong message to women. But the John F. Kennedy quote that I was thinking of that he always said that our problems are made by men and they can be solved by men. And I think today we recognize that they cannot be solved by men alone and that women have to be at the table. And when you put women at the table, things get solved faster and better. And the solutions are stronger. We see it in any country where women are more fully represented at the solutions are better and economies thrive. So thank you for pulling together such an impressive event and appreciate all those who are tuning in around the world. And let's use this anniversary not just once a year, but every day, look at the problems through a gender lens and say where are the women and you will find very rapidly that the solutions come faster and last longer. And on anything that we're talking about there must be a gender lens. So that would be my parting word is make sure that you're always looking at everything through a lens of are both parts of society fully represented. And it's not just men and women as I mentioned before, it's minority LGBTI and has to have an inclusive society to get a full solution. And thank you so much for the opportunity to join. Thank you, Ambassador Soderbergh. And I do believe, Mari, did you get back on? No? Okay, I'm so sorry that we didn't have Mari join again. But thank you both. We really appreciate again your leadership, your inspiration, and your continued work. Thanks again to our partners at USIP for their support for today's event. If anyone is looking for more information on the United States efforts on women's peace and security, I will point you again to our first ever WPS report released in June. You can find this on the State Department website. You can also follow SGUI, my office on Facebook and Twitter at StateGUI to receive updates on my office's work. And you can follow hashtag WPS in action to learn more about WPS. Again, many, many thanks. It's been such an honor Ambassador Soderbergh. Mari, we hope to get to see you again soon. And thank you to everyone in the Facebook world. Thank you so much. Take care.