How Namibia helped birth UN Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security

Journey started in Beijing

When the world converged in Beijing, China, for the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, it undoubtedly marked a significant turning point for the global agenda on gender equality.

For Namibia, then only five years into its independence, this was a particularly significant opportunity for the country to engage as a sovereign nation and shift the national approach on the empowerment of Namibian women.

This same spirit galvanised the Namibian campaign to join the UN Security Council in 1999. Determined to mainstream the Beijing Conference principles, Namibia was committed to a positive and lasting contribution to international peace, informed too by its own liberation struggle and the constitution negotiated out of that past.

While Namibia’s experience of conflict demonstrated that women are often among the principal victims of war, conflict, and insecurity, it also showed that women were integral to the independence struggle including as teachers, doctors, fighters and at the negotiation tables.

In 1999, the Namibian delegation to the UN understood the role of women as indispensable partners in the creation and maintenance of international peace and security, not to be relegated to ‘victimhood’.

Up until then, references to women in UN Security Council documents were mostly as victims of rape, or when the use of rape as a weapon of war was discussed. There was no suggestion nor expectation of the capabilities of women in conflict prevention, resolution and settlement.  

Namibia believed that the world was ready to acknowledge a role for women in contributing to peace processes through a focused agenda, which was informed by regional and international experiences of women, leading to its championing of Resolution 1325.

The country has remained at the forefront of the cause, and is a founding member of the Women, Peace and Security Focal Points Network launched in 2016, with the primary purpose of implementing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda at national level.