A South Belfast-based women’s organisation has just launched a new toolkit aimed at giving women more of a say in Northern Ireland policy making.

The toolkit was produced from the Women and Peace Building Project, a joint venture between Women’s Resource and Development Agency (WRDA) in South Belfast, Community Foundation Northern Ireland (CFNI) and the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI), which is funded by the Special EU Programmes Body.

Over the last two years the project has gathered the views of around one thousand women on peace building and related topics, leading to the production of the new toolkit. It has been designed to show Northern Ireland policy makers here how to apply the principles of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security to their work, thereby ensuring women are given a voice in local policy development and have their human rights protected.

Kate provided some background on the importance of UNSCR 1325 and the toolkit. She explained that the resolution, which came into being during 2000, had been created to ensure that women played a role in every aspect of security, peace building and post-conflict policy development, but so far had not been enacted in NI. She said that NI, as a post-conflict society, could particularly benefit from applying the principles of the resolution given how uneven representation still is here. For instance, we have no female high court judges. Kate then provided examples of countries where UNSCR 1325 had been applied to excellent effect, including Rwanda which now has the highest number of women politicians in the world.

Paula then took to the mic, discussing the work of the All Party Group on UNSCR 1325 at the Northern Ireland Assembly, which she currently chairs. She said that progress had initially been slow, but there was a great deal of enthusiasm within the group now and a Westminster inquiry had recently been held to explore whether the resolution should be formally introduced to Northern Ireland.

Before closing, she praised the toolkit and said she would ensure it was passed to her Assembly colleagues. The Women and Peace Building Project partners will also be ensuring the toolkit is passed to policy makers on both sides of the border.

Pictured from left to right, North Belfast MLA Paula Bradley, Kate McCullough of NIWEP and WRDA Director Anne McVicker come together on the steps of the Crumlin Road Gaol to launch the new policy toolkit.