Thank you Chair, and thank you to Chairperson-in-Office, Foreign Minister Anne Linde for her message this afternoon.
Full implementation of UNSCR 1325 and the subsequent resolutions pertaining to Women, Peace and Security (WPS) remain high on the UK's agenda.
The reasons for this are clear. Diversity, including diversity of leadership, leads to more informed decision making and better policies. As I have said previously in this Council, when women participate meaningfully in peace processes, the resulting agreement is 64% less likely to fail and 35% more likely to last for at least 15 years. On the 21st anniversary of UNSCR 1325, we recall that every country at the UN pledged to increase women's participation in peace processes. The OSCE has a leading role to play, both within its conflict cycle toolkit and its concept of comprehensive security, and as a regional security organisation under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter.
In December last year, 52 states signed up to the joint UNSCR1325 statement at the Tirana Ministerial Council, with its menu of actions for implementation in the OSCE region. In support of this, we were pleased to host a side event with Belgium yesterday with the aim of "facilitating and advancing meaningful reporting on WPS in the framework of the Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security". We believe this initiative will help to enhance the quality of responses and lead to more states providing voluntary reports.
We thank Sweden for the attention they have given to WPS during their Chairpersonship. There is still much to do. We need to ensure that women are fully represented in all OSCE peace processes and that gender considerations are an integral part of solutions. We must also ensure the safety of women peacebuilders, and we must continue to step up efforts to prevent sexual violence in conflict and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice. The tools are there. We need to use them.
The UK looks forward to tangible progress in the coming year, and to the OSCE and its participating States playing a leading role in making full implementation of the WPS agenda a reality.
Thank you Chair.
