The 18-month project dubbed “Women in South Sudan Security Sector, a Path to Inclusive and Transformative Leadership project.” will be implemented by Hope Africa South Sudan and the African Relief Development Foundation in parts of Upper Nile, Bahr el Ghazal and Equatoria regions.
UN Women Country representative, Delphine Serumaga, said, “Today was a really good day because we did a signing with two NGOs dealing with peacebuilding, specifically about women in the security sector.”
She added that the idea was to continue with the National Action Plan under peace peacebuilding fund to encourage and ensure that the security sector is gender inclusive and appropriate for women.
“Because it’s really important that women are part of that sector for purposes of community-level engagement and community peace building,” he added.
Dr. Alex Mawa, the country director for ARDF, stated that: “Within this contract, of course, we have so many deliverables. One of them is to do women’s network, to establish a women’s network within the state. And these women network, these are the people in uniform.”
He stated that they will conduct gender diversity studies to uncover security sector gaps that prevent women from adopting leadership roles and being included in other decision-making processes.
“Our outcome for this program, first of all, the target group, of course, these are the women in the security sector, which we are targeting around 80% of the women and then the other fraction, which is 20%, will be men.”
Meanwhile, Aduol Aduol, the executive director of Hope Africa South Sudan, said, “Today we have witnessed the signing of the partnership agreement between UN Women and Hope Africa South Sudan with support from the UN Peacebuilding Fund.”
He explained that “we will try to build capacity for women through advocacy skills, training, and also undertaking gender diversity studies that will help us to identify challenges and opportunities that exist for women’s participation in leadership in South Sudan.”
Mr. Adoul noted that if implemented, more women would join the security sector in the country.
“We’ll have more skills and knowledge that are learned through the project. We also envisage a detailed policy recommendation that is given to the top leadership of the country.”
“And then they are worked upon so that more women can go into ranks, bigger ranks in the institutions.
The HASS boss believes the government worked with partners, UN Women, and UN Peacebuilding Fund to increase women in leadership roles and execute 35% affirmative action.
Also, the acting Executive Director – Conflict and Peace Building, Ministry of Peace Building, Joseph Kido, stated that “this most important implementation agreement is of paramount importance for the Republic of South Sudan in a way that it is going to involve our young men and women in the peacebuilding processes.”
“It will also be in a position to reduce gender-based violence, gender equality, and women’s effective participation in leadership processes,” he added.
