What Fueled the Far-Reaching Impact of the Windhoek Declaration and Namibia Plan of Action as a Milestone for Gender Mainstreaming in UN Peace Support Operations and Where Is Implementation 20 Years Later?

Abstract

Acknowledging that progress in gender mainstreaming was woefully deficient, the United Nations (UN) Department of Peacekeeping Operations organized a May 2000 Seminar in Windhoek on “Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peace Support Operations”, hosted by the Namibian Government, which produced two ground-breaking outcome documents that had an enormous impact on the adoption of landmark UN Security Council resolution 1325 on “Women and peace and security” five months later. Through the lens of the author’s first-hand account, the article unpacks and scrutinizes the ways in which the Seminar’s visionary Windhoek Declaration and the more operational Namibia Plan of Action came into being and had such a critical impact on that milestone resolution, and what specific factors ignited this exceptional outcome, including the role played by the host country. Through this prism, three key factors and the infectious effect of each are described, providing insights into the evolving Seminar dynamics and the interplay of inspiring speakers, Working Group deliberations, and strategic plenary sessions. The article also highlights, however, that the promises of the Windhoek Declaration, Namibia Plan of Action, and resolution 1325 have still not been fulfilled twenty years later, even though the hopes of conflict-affected women had been re-ignited in 2015 with Security Council resolution 2242’s sweeping calls for action and a stark Global Study on the Implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 presenting robust recommendations for action to fill the many gaps. As the 20th anniversary of resolution 1325 approaches, a rallying cry of hope is directed to all those who believe in the need for women to be fully involved as equal partners in all peace and security processes that this struggle can still be accelerated to achieve the results envisaged if top UN leadership spearheads a bold time-bound initiative to steer the course forward. But will this rallying cry be embraced?