VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Women do play a key role in maintaining peace through their economic, social, and cultural roles. In this regard, Indonesia emphasized three things to ensure women's involvement in maintaining peace and security: first, affirming the urgency of women's role as agents of peace and tolerance; second, doubling the effort to prioritize the role of women in regional peacekeeping agenda; and third, establishing and developing regional networks for female negotiators and mediators.

At the open debate on “Women in Peacekeeping Missions" at the UNSC in April 2019, Secretary General Antonio Guterres highlighted that the increasing number of women's participation in peacekeeping missions was not merely a matter of statistics, but also about increasing the capacity of peacekeepers and other parties to accomplish their missions.

Before the open debate, Guterres handed a letter that summarized gender equity strategies for peacekeeping personnels, in response to the Resolution 2242 dated 13 October 2015 that demanded the Secretary General “to start working with the Country Members and utilizing the existing resources to improve the number of women's participation in military contingent and police as part of UN Peacekeeping Mission for the next five years."

At various international forums, Indonesia highlighted the importance of women's role in peacekeeping missions. One of the milestones of the effort was marked by the first meeting of female foreign ministers in Montreal, Canada on 21 September 2018 that was attended by Foreign Minister Retno L. P. Marsudi. At the meeting, promoting peace and security and eliminating gender-based violences became one of the most important topic.

To improve women's involvement in peacekeeping missions, we require a strong political commitment to investing in the sectors that will potentially provide women with the opportunities to make national decisions within the peacekeeping process. This can be accomplished by producing and implementing policies that acknowledge women's right (equity and non-discrimiation), cultural reformation, and sufficient resources.

Global Gender Advisory network that consists of experts in gender mainstreaming, for example, will ensure that the perspective of gender mainstreaming is built across divisions and operation lines. The existence of these expert advisors should be prioritized by leaders so they can speak out the urgency of women's involvement in UN Peacekeeping Missions. This strategy has been adapted by New Zealand Defence Forces that established the first Pacific Military Women's Advisory Network seminar in Suva, Fiji.

Providing more training, including special training for women, as a gender focus, or for units that need special preparation, such as the Intelligence Task Force, Ops Staff, CIMIC, negotiators, and mediators—the tasks that are exclusively considered as “feminine tasks" (medical, logistic, administration) in order to improve the performance of mission as mandated.

In that regard, Indonesia has held a regional training program on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) in Jakarta. This training was attended by 60 female diplomats from ASEAN, Timor Leste, and Papua New Guinea. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno L. P. Marsudi reaffirmed the importance of ASEAN leaders' initiative to implement the WPS agenda in Southeast Asia and the urgency of involving more women on UN Peacekeeping Missions.

Regardless of women's important contribution in peace and security, their representation and roles are still limited in the various phases of peacekeeping processes. Consequently,  a crucial demand arises to actively support their participation and commitment in sustainable peace process before, during, and after the conflicts.

Indonesia expected that women's role in peace and security is no longer seen as extraordinary, but as the norm, because “investing in women equals investing in peace".