Meeting of the Women’s Empowerment Network - Steering Group
Vienna, 31 May 2007
Recommendations on the empowerment of women in the area of conflict resolution and peace building
On 31 May 2007, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Austrian Federal Minister for European and International Affairs Dr. Ursula Plassnik hosted a meeting of the Women’s Empowerment Network Steering Group in Vienna to discuss strategies for the empowerment of women in the area of conflict resolution and peace building. The
meeting took place in the context of an International Conference “Women Leaders –
Networking for Peace and Security in the Middle East”.
Women have important contributions to make to conflict resolution and peace building,
both on a local and on an international level. To ensure that these contributions are
effectively heard and used, the Steering Group agreed on the following
recommendations:
- The Steering Group urges the Secretary General of the United Nations to set up a
mechanism to increase the number of women among United Nations special
representatives and envoys including as heads of peace operations. The fact that
there is currently no woman among 54 United Nations envoys to conflict and postconflict
regions is unacceptable.
- The Steering Group commits itself to work towards the nomination of more women
as envoys and mediators also in other international and regional organisations.
- Whenever visiting conflict or post-conflict regions such as the Middle East, Steering
Group members will hold consultations with women’s groups and women human
rights defenders.
- The Steering Group calls upon the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission to
effectively integrate a gender perspective into all aspects of its work and to ensure
that women are included in peace processes.
- The Steering Group reaffirmed the need to strengthen the gender architecture of the
United Nations, with a view to ensure a more effective and efficient delivery of United
Nations gender related programmes and mandates in the field.
- The Steering Group further calls upon national and international actors to
systematically review their cooperation programmes with a view to introduce targeted
gender related activities into their strategies and programmes on peace and security.
Steering Group members further decided to nominate focal points within their offices to
ensure effective implementation of these recommendations and to coordinate future
activities of the Women’s Empowerment Network.
The Conclusions and Recommendations of the 3 Workshops:
Workshop 1 Media Conclusions.
Workshop 2 Business Conclusions.
Workshop 3 Civil Society Conclusions.