UN security council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security was unanimously adopted in 2000 with the purpose to promote gender equality and the protection of girls and women in the context of conflict and peace building. In 2006, the Swedish government adopted a national action plan to promote the implementation of UN resolution 1325. This national action plan was revised in 2009 and extended to 2012. Through the implementation of the action plan and in accordance with the spirit of Resolution 1325, Sweden aims to contribute to the following goals:

• To increase the number of women participating in international peace-support and security building operations and support local women’s peace initiatives in conflict areas.
  
  
• To ensure women’s equal participation in institutions and decision making in post conflict and peace processes.
  
  
• To strengthen the protection of women’s and girls’ human rights within the framework of humanitarian law and their specific needs during conflict.
  
  
• To integrate a gender perspective in peace, security building and humanitarian operations.

The overarching goal of the Folke Bernadotte Academy’s work on gender equality and UN resolution 1325 is to promote the implementation of the Swedish National Action Plan on UN Resolution 1325. As reflected in the above mentioned objectives, UN resolution 1325 takes a comprehensive approach. With the support of UN resolution 1325 and the work surrounding its implementation, women’s rights as well as their work for peace and security have gained new recognition in international peace operations. In 2008, the Security Council adopted resolution 1820. This resolution focuses on sexualized violence during conflict and is thus a reinforcement of specific aspects of resolution 1325.  

The point of departure for a gender perspective implies looking at how the social relations between girls/women and boys/men generate different needs and abilities. But a gender equality perspective also points to the need to look at how other social structures like class, religion, ethnicity, political belonging, sexual preference or race affect and lead to further differentiation between men as well as between women. A gender perspective is thus ultimately about not approaching groups of people as homogenous entities, but to see how people’s different social positions affect their abilities to access and control resources and take an active part in decisions that affect their lives.

Gender equality and women’s rights are frequently related to as if it is one of many separate interests. However, women compose half (and sometimes more) of the population and to disregard their needs and rights, is not only unfair, but also ineffective. Thus, seeing, understanding and meeting both women’s and men’s different conditions and needs will automatically increase the impact and therefore quality of our international peace keeping operations. This is why an understanding of gender equality and UN resolutions 1325 and 1820 is central to the work of the Folke Bernadotte Academy. From this point of departure and with the purpose of promoting the implementation of UN resolutions 1325 and 1820, the Academy works within the following areas:  

Personnel

• Recruitment: the Academy is working proactively to promote the gender balance in international missions and operations by ensuring that women and men are being nominated for secondments in more or less equal numbers.
  
  
• Capacity Building: It has been made a requirement for all Folke Bernadotte Academy staff based in Sweden to attend the basic course on gender equality (Jämställdhet Göra Lära), organized by the Swedish Defence College.
  
  

Course work

• Integration of UN resolution 1325 and a gender perspective into existing courses and exercises. The Academy aims to integrate a gender perspective into all of its courses and exercises. Experience indicates that the best strategy is to combine gender focused presentations with a mainstreamed perspective throughout the different components of the course, including exercises and case studies. The Academy is also striving to ensure that all pre-deployment coursers include information related to the resolutions 1325 and 1820.

 
• Development of new courses with a gender perspective. The Academy also develops courses with a more immediate gender focus. For an example, in November 2009, a leadership course with a strong gender perspective is being carried out together with the Swedish National Defence College.
  
  

Support to policy and coordination

• National Coordination. The Academy has a mandate to promote national coordination and cooperation on questions pertaining to the implementation of resolution 1325. Since 2008, the Academy participates in the Genderforce network, composed of a number of Swedish government agencies and civil society organizations.  Within the framework of this collaboration the Academy takes part in planning and implementing the recurrent Gender Field Adviser course. In the beginning of October 2009, this course will for the first time be run with international participants.

 

• Cooperation with international organizations to support the implementation of resolution 1325 and 1820. The Academy cooperates with international organizations like the UN, EU, OSCE, AU and NATO to strengthen the implementation of resolutions 1325 and 1820 in international peace keeping missions and operations. In April 2009, the Academy collaborated with the UN Department of Peace Keeping Operations and in April 2009 on the seminar” Increasing Dialogue and Cooperation between the UN and Regional Organizations“. Focus was on coordination and cooperation between the gender advisors from different organizations and the seminar brought together the Gender Advisors from DPKO with representatives from OSCE, EU, AU and the Swedish Armed Forces for discussions and exchange of experiences.
  
  In July 2009, the Academy organized the seminar ‘Strengthening ESDP missions and operations through training on UNSCR 1325 and 1820’ on behalf of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The seminar was part of the Swedish Presidency of the EU and focused on how the EU can strengthen their training efforts on gender and resolutions 1325 and 1820 ahead of their ESDP missions. As part of the preparations ahead of the seminar, a survey on existing training practices was sent out to all Member States and ESDP missions. The findings from the survey were presented and discussed at the seminar.
  
  The Academy has also collaborated with FOI (Swedish Defence Research Agency) in a multinational research project to support the implementation of Resolution 1325 and 1820 in the work of ISAF in Afghanistan. The project resulted in the report ”Operational Effectiveness and UN Resolution 1325 – Practices and Lessons from Afghanistan”.
  
  

Research

• Research Group focusing on UNSCR 1325. The Academy builds its work on collated experience and systematic research. In order to strengthen this further, the Academy has agreed to support an international research group focusing on questions relating to resolution 1325 and 1820. The research group has a strong empirical and methodological focus in order to contribute to our knowledge in this field.