Between the 11th and 13th of April, 22 representatives from civil society in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh gathered in Yerevan, Armenia for a training on civil society monitoring of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The training was conducted by Operation 1325 in partnership with the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation.
So far little has been done by the government in Armenia and the de-facto authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh to implement the resolution; hence there is a need for effective tools for advocacy. Through monitoring, civil society in both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh will have the necessary base line data to lobby their authorities to take measures to live up to the obligations set forth in UNSCR 1325.
Operation 1325’s Secretary General Karin Axelsson-Zaar and Project Manager Emmicki Roos, responsible for monitoring and national action plans, facilitated the workshop. The sessions covered civil society monitoring, the role of civil society in national action plan processes, how to use indicators, as well as advocacy strategies.
Challenges in Nagorno-Karabakh
Throughout the workshop the participants were active and showed enthusiasm despite the many challenges discussed. One of the challenges brought up was how to do monitoring in Nagorno-Karabakh since it is an unrecognized state. As a result of the lack of available data, civil society will have to collect most of the data from scratch. Since this type of research has not been conducted in Nagorno-Karabakh by civil society in the past it is also difficult to predict how the local de-facto authorities will react and whether it will be cooperating or not with the researchers.
On the last day of the workshop the participants had a meeting to discuss how they will move forward with monitoring as well as using the data collected to lobby for the adoption of national action plans (NAPs) on UNSCR 1325. A steering committee made up of eight civil society representatives was formed and it was decided that the committee will produce two reports this year, one for Armenia and one for Nagorno-Karabakh.
The participants and facilitators left the workshop feeling positive and inspired, looking forward to an interesting year of monitoring and advocacy activities in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The two monitoring reports will also be launched as part of the global Women Count monitoring report, produced by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP). The launch will take place in New York around the anniversary of the resolution in late October.
