It is a great pleasure and indeed an honour for me to be here today and share with you OCHA's approaches, experiences, successes and – also to admit – obstacles we have faced and continue to face following the implementation of relevant steps regarding Security Council resolution 1325 (2000).

First of all, I want to draw your attention to OCHA's mandate in order to reflect its concrete responsibility vis ŕ vis Security Council resolution 1325.

OCHA – among other things - is mandated:

• to advocate for the "silent victims" of crises;
  Obviously, women and girls are part of that particularly silent majority and are in need of specific advocacy strategies and interventions. Special needs of women and girls, human rights abuses, and more specifically sexual abuse and exploitation are issues that are key humanitarian issues.
• to prepare the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP);
  As the CAP is the strategic planning and resource mobilisation instrument of the humanitarian agencies, and as it aims to address the needs of the most vulnerable population groups, it is also an instrument that needs to reflect the protection and assistance needs of women and girls.
• to undertake inter-agency needs assessments;
  The methodology of needs assessments has to take into consideration that women and girls' voices are included and their specific needs reflected.
• to ensure the preparation of contingency plans;
  Gender aspects need to be reflected in the plans if we are to be seen as "serving" and "reaching" the vulnerable
• to support the Humanitarian Coordinator/country teams;
  Here OCHA can play a sensitising role, drawing the attention of the Country Team and the Humanitarian Coordinator to the situation of women and girls in the crisis and securing the formulation of an appropriate strategy and responses.

No 1: OCHA's input to the Secretary –General's Report

One of the major practical measures in resolution 1325 is a request to the Secretary General to carry out a study on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, the role of women in peace -building and the gender dimensions of peace processes and conflict resolution.

OCHA has already submitted its input, focussing on sections of the study that deal with humanitarian assistance, displacement, human rights and humanitarian principles. We also underlined how the CAP reflects the impact of armed conflict on women and girls and formulated appropriate strategies to ensure that the specific needs of women and girls are met. Country examples include Sierra Leone, Burundi, Afghanistan, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tajikistan and South Eastern Europe.

In addition, the OCHA's contribution to the study reflects the work of the IASC Reference Groups on Gender, as well as Post Conflict Reintegration, which highlights specific gender related issues.

No 2: OCHA's advocacy for Women and Girls

The 2001 Launch of the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) with its title "Women and War" was intended to draw special attention to the situation of women and girls in complex emergencies, to focus on the use of international instruments for the protection of women and girls and to emphasize the role of women in peace building and peace making.

In addition, OCHA each year highlights women's issues during the International Women's Day, with high level participation in panel discussions, exhibitions, presentations and films reflecting the situation of women in various complex emergencies as well as in natural disasters.

No. 3: Mainstreaming gender issues in the Consolidated Appeal Process

The IASC has established a Reference Group on Gender and Humanitarian Response (under the chairmanship of UNICEF and WFP). Initially this group has prepared an inter-agency policy statement on mainstreaming gender into humanitarian assistance, which was endorsed by the IASC in May 1999. Since then the Reference Group has followed up on the implementation of this policy statement and has developed a resource package as a CD-Rom, which was distributed to all Humanitarian Coordinators.

Furthermore the Reference Group has made gender experts available to facilitate the "Capacity and Vulnerability Analysis" (CVA) in CAP trainings, which took place in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Burundi, Angola, Eritrea, Uganda and then Democratic Republic of the Congo. Therefore, we are expecting improved CAP documents for the 2002 launch, which reflect the special needs of women and girls.

No. 4: Sexual abuse and exploitation – a humanitarian issue addressed in CAPs

The Burundi 2001 CAP includes a UNFPA/UNICEF project that aims to increase awareness to HIV/AIDS and offers psycho-social support to women and girls that have been raped or sexually abused.

The CAP for Sierra Leone presented 15 projects focussing on the special needs of women. Prevention of sexual abuse was given specific attention.

In Somalia, OHCHR, UNICEF, UNDP, UNIFEM in partnership with local and international partners included advocacy on such issues as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), protection of minorities and gender mainstreaming in their CAP proposal.

No. 5: Inclusion of women's organisations in the CAP

The 2002 CAP includes a sub-regional programme for West Africa under the heading "Culture of Peace", which tries to ensure that the capacity of women's organisations is strengthened and intends to cooperate with regional women groups on gender issues.

No. 6: Gender concerns in Contingency Plans

In the recently formulated draft contingency plan for Ivory Coast, the main objectives include the protection of women as a matter of priority.

Critical issues, needing further attention include:

• Prioritisation and targeted funding for interventions in favour of

• vulnerable women and girls;
• capacity building of women's organisations engaged in conflict resolution;
• social sector programmes including education, health and sanitation;
• reintegration and disarmament.

• Dedication of human resources to the application and follow up of resolution 1325 and the overall initiative of mainstreaming gender into humanitarian responses;
• Identification and recruitment of gender experts for HQ as well as field positions;
• Improved programme design, more advocacy, training and participation of women at all levels in agency decision-making and programme implementation. Due care needs to be taken to enable the inclusion of women beneficiaries at the local level.
• Additional training for UN Country Teams and Desk Officers in the various agencies;
• Monitoring, evaluation and follow up of the IASC Reference Group's efforts in 2002 and consolidation of its work.

My office is actively involved with the issue of the protection of civilians in armed conflict particularly with regard to how conflict impacts on women.

Women and children are the principal victims of armed conflict as highlighted in many reports including, the Secretary General in his two reports on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict. In his first report on this issue, the Secretary General's called upon the Security Council in recommendations 20 and 21 "to ensure, as appropriate, that the special protection and assistance requirements of children and women are fully addressed in all peacekeeping and peace building operations." And further called upon the Security Council in recommendation 21 to "systematically require parties to conflicts to make special arrangements to meet the protection and assistance requirements of children and women. These could include the promotion of ‘days of immunization' or similar initiatives."

In an effort to follow up on these and other Secretary General's recommendations, my office in collaboration with Columbia University recently organized a series of three roundtable discussion involving Member States, the UN Secretariat and agencies, NGOS and academics. The participants provided encouraging examples where special protection arrangements for women have been addressed such as days of immunization, and the incorporation of gender advisors in peace-keeping mission, still much more needs to be done.

The study requested by Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women and peace and security is welcomed and will further inform such efforts and promote understanding of the impact of armed conflict on women and the role they do and can play in peace-building.