Conflict resolution boss urges women involvement

 

Director-General, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Prof. Oshita O. Oshita, has restated the need for proper streamlining of gender roles and synergy into “Nigeria’s peace and security architecture, to enable peace and progress.”
Oshita stated this in his keynote address yesterday at a conference on “All-Nigeria Women Leaders on Peace Building and Conflict Resolution: Peace in Nigeria, a Collective Responsibility,” organised by the Centre for Gender Studies International (CGSI) in Abuja.
Represented by the Head, Gender, Peace Resolution and Security, Mrs. Grace Audu, he said “there is a need to assign the role of coordinating body to arrive at systematic and envisaged outcomes, in order to bridge existing gaps in peace processes.”
“Recognising the importance that women play in conflict resolution and peace building especially at the informal levels, the UN in the year 2000 adopted a political framework, the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC 1325), to bring women to the leadership and decision making levels in peace processes.
“It also acknowledges that women are more and differently impacted by conflict from men and, therefore, mandated member countries to integrate gender perspectives in all aspects of peace building,” he said.
Oshita noted that the country began the “process of domesticating the UN resolutions by developing a National Action Plan (NAP), including the National Gender Policy (NGP) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),” adding, however, that “it seems that the goal of the UNSCR 1325 is still far-fetched.”
He, therefore, charged stakeholders to “engage with issues inhibiting the adequate promotion of peace in Nigeria that needed answers,” urging them to “come up with action points for next steps to be taken.”
Representing the National Orientation Agency (NOA) at the Conference, Mrs. Theresa Maduekwe said “for peace to reign in Nigeria, citizens must embrace African values of respect for one another, and communal living where everyone is their brother’s keeper.”
In her welcome address, the Convener, Executive Secretary of the CGSI and former Commissioner for Women Affairs in Imo state, Mrs. Nma Love Onyechere, decried the “lack of adequate commitment to security issues especially as it affects women and girls, by women leaders in the country.”

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