UN Women reaffirms commitment to implementing resolution 1325.

The event was attended by the Minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family, Prof Marie Therese Abena Ondoa. Also present was the Rector of the University of Yaounde I, and a host of other officials of the state. 

Officials disclosed that the event was held to discuss the Resolution, which was adopted by the United Nations Security Council for women integration in peace processes and in humanitarian action. 

At local level, the resolution was implemented through a national action plan. Officials disclosed that Cameroon has its own national action plan that the UN is supporting the implementation both at national and local level. 

Speaking during the ceremony, Marie Pierre Raky Chaupin said 25 years ago, under the presidency of Namibia, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1325.  

She said the historic moment, the culmination of decades of advocacy led by women's movements around the world, was the beginning of a collective commitment to recognise that sustainable peace cannot be built without women.

“We are working together with the ministries, United Nations entities to mobilise more resources in order to implement the activities of the National Action Plan. We are trying also to work with the Ministry of Defence in order to strengthen the capacity of military and police actors to mainstream gender in the security sector,” she said.

Stating the reason for the conference, she said “25 years later, we must answer a simple but demanding question; have we kept this promise? The answer is nuanced, but it begins with undeniable progress. The Women, Peace, and Security agenda is no longer limited to a normative aspiration; it has transformed practices, institutions, and legal frameworks and today 113 states and territories have a national action plan on women, peace, and security in the world, compared to only 19 in 2010”.

Chaupin further added that women's participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations has more than doubled since 2017. She added that women occupy more decision-making positions in countries affected by conflict.

She further added thatthe UN has strengthened its support for national accountability mechanisms, revealing that every year progress is recorded before international jurisdictions and through hundreds of national trials, including specialised military and mobile courts.

Statistics recorded 

In 2024, the UN Women Resident Representative said 676 million women and girls were living within 50 kilometres of deadly conflict, the highest number ever recorded. 

“The past five years have been marked by stagnation and, in some cases, regression across many key indicators. The respect of international norms is eroding, funding is shrinking, political polarisation is weakening multilateralism and long-established gender terminology is being contested,” Chaupin said. 

She further added that at the beginning of 2025, nearly one-quarter of countries implementing the Beijing Platform for Action reported setbacks in women's rights in corridors of power, peace tables, and within security institutions, while men remained the majority, often without accountability mechanisms proportionate to the authority they exercise. 

“If we are to close this gap, we must transform the way we act and that transformation begins with high-quality timely gender data, and without data, women's needs become invisible, budgets cannot be tracked, decisions perpetuate bias, conflict-related sexual violence remains undocumented,” she said.

Stating the objective of the resolution, she said the Resolution 1325 is not just a simple promise of the past, but an obligation of the present where women participate, peace holds, showing 25 years of accelerating the implementation of this resolution and commitments and also implementation on the ground.

Reaffirms commitment 

The UN Women Representative, during the event, reaffirmed the commitment of the entire United Nations system, particularly UN Women in Cameroon, to implementing the resolution through various programmes on the ground. 

“I reassure you of our promise and the promise of the entire United Nations system to act alongside you and support the efforts being led by authorities, civil society organisations, and academic institutions such as the University of Yaounde I,” she said.

Enter Minister of Women’s Empowerment

The Minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family, Prof Marie Therese Abena Ondoa, said the government's action plan for the implementation of Resolution 1325 and related resolutions are based on five pillars of prevention, participation, protection, relief, and promotion. 

She also revealed that the work by the government is also broken down into five strategic axes; strengthening peace and security, improving the equal participation of women and men at all levels, strengthening the protection of and respect for the rights of women and girls during all phases of conflict, increasing sensitivity to gender issues in recovery, reconstruction, and empowerment policies and programmes for women in conflict and post-conflict situations, and popularise the Women, Peace, and Security agenda and its national action plan throughout the country.

This article article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3734 of Tuesday March 17, 2026