Women, Peace and Security Implementation Plan

Thursday 11th December 2014 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (James Duddridge)]

I wish to inform the House that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, together with the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence, are today publishing an implementation plan for the “UK National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security for 2014-17”, which was published on 12 June 2014 (HC Deb, column 72-4WS, 16 June 2014).

The national action plan sets out our priorities on women, peace and security for the next three years. It is the guiding national policy document that provides the direction and vision to the Government and their partners as we work to ensure that women and girls are at the centre of our efforts to prevent, respond to, and resolve conflict.

The implementation plan published today establishes baseline data and target indicators for the national action plan. These will help us measure progress against outcomes at country level in the six focus countries set out in the national action plan: Afghanistan, Burma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Somalia and Syria. This is the first time that the UK has published a detailed implementation plan for our work on women, peace and security. The implementation plan helps capture the diverse set of initiatives to promote the protection and full participation of women that are taking place within the UK Government across our development, defence and diplomacy work. It is complemented by work undertaken through the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative and DFID’s strategic vision for women and girls. The implementation plan also helps set the global standard by demonstrating the UK’s determination to monitor our progress in delivering on our commitments.

We will report to Parliament annually on progress on all aspects of the national action plan, including in the six focus countries, beginning in autumn 2015.

I have deposited a copy of the implementation plan in the Libraries of both Houses.

Attachments can be viewed online at: http://www. parliament.uk/writtenstatements