The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda is a priority area for Oxfam Denmark and our engagement involves both policy, advocacy and programming at country, regional and global levels with a key focus and objective to push for the greater inclusion and participation of women and women’s rights organisations in peace processes, where women continue to be heavily underrepresented and sidelined.
At policy level in Denmark, we engage actively across civil society and the Inter-Ministerial Working Group in the National Action Plan on the UN Resolution 1325 and through the Oxfam Confederation we support global advocacy efforts, including at the UN Security Council, to ensure that WPS not only remains on the agenda but that key stakeholders uphold their commitments and actively champion 1325.
In our programmes in countries like Burkina Faso and South Sudan, we partner with women’s rights organisations and work with women leaders and activists to promote the meaningful participation of women in key decision-making and peace processes efforts from the local community-level to national processes, including for women to take part in National Action Plans on 1325 and peace negotiations. We do this by promoting women’s rights and supporting women’s leadership and women-led peacebuilding initiatives. In line with feminist principles, we want to put our collaborators, partners and local women in the driving seat and support the development of WPS and peace initiatives that are anchored in local realities, needs and capacities and are defined, designed and led by women.
Learn more about Oxfam Denmark and Oxfam vision for "Transforming power to put women at the heart of peacebuilding".
In South Sudan, Oxfam Denmark has supported women activists’ direct engagement in the peace process and after the peace agreement was signed, we have assisted with advocacy and support to the monitoring and engagement of civil society in the implementation and oversight of the peace deal. Support has also been given to young female peacebuilders as well as women’s activists at local and national level documenting their stories and using these for advocacy.
Read more about our work in South Sudan.
In Yemen, we work with national and local women leaders and activists to lobby for women to be actively included in both formal and informal peace processes, from which they have been excluded and for women’s rights and needs to be included and promoted in peace dialogues and peacebuilding initiatives.
Read more about out work in Yemen.
In Burkina Faso, we support The Network of Women of Faith for Peace in Burkina Faso/ Le Réseau des Femmes de Foi pour la Paix au Burkina Faso (REFFOP-BF) which aims to bring together women of all faith in Burkina Faso together to promote peaceful coexistence and women’s participation in peacebuilding. We support REFFOP efforts for creating space inter-religious dialogue, women’s leadership training in mediation and conflict transformation, as well as for advocacy towards the implementation of the UN RES 1325 NAP for Burkina Faso.
Read more about our work in Burkina Faso
We also support the global #IMatter campaign that seeks to build and strengthen a movement that recognises and values women and girls as critical leaders during and after a crisis. In 2020, we supported the launch of the campaign in the Sahel region, supporting 11 CSOs to design and lead their own campaigns to demand women’s inclusion in peacebuilding efforts and commemorate the 20th anniversay of the UN RES 1325.