SiLNAP Is Long Overdue Says Gender Minister

The Sierra Leone National Action Plan (SiLNAP) which speaks on the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security is now overdue.

This was disclosed by the Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs, Dr. Isata Mahoi during a consultative workshop on the review of the Plan, noting that even though Sierra Leone is done with the Second Generation and moving to the Third Generation, there are countries who have done the Fourth Generation.

“It means that we need to fast-track our moves by ensuring that we try to catch up with other countries,” she said.
She stressed that the SiLNAP is a very key component and that without its implementation and putting reports together, Sierra Leone will not be in a position to match up with other countries.

Noting that it is the idea of the MDGs, she said that when they sign these treaties as a country, they should work together to ensure that the treaties are domesticated into local laws and contextualized.

She said if they now have the GEWE Act which is there to position women strategically, they should equally be in a better position to work on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 which they are craving for.

UN Women Officer in-Charge, Madam Baindu Massaquoi said that there is strong evidence suggesting that women’s participation in peace consolidation contributes to longer and more resilient peace after conflict.

She explained that in the current national peace and security context, there are many new emerging and ever-growing threats from violent conflicts, unprecedented and contracted displaced people and humanitarian crisis, natural disaster, climate change and public health crisis.

“Our joint efforts to implement the women peace and security agenda as well as gender responsive humanitarian or development assistance are more critical than ever,” she said.

She furthered that women remain largely invisible to and excluded from peace and security processes as a whole- from the conflict prevention to the post conflict recovery stages.

“Their (women) contribution to peace consolidation continues to go undervalued and under-resourced, leaving untapped an incredible human resources capital for transformative change and sustainable peace,” she said.

In his statement, the Director of Planning in the Ministry of Gender and Children’s Affairs, Ibrahim Kamara said that the Second-Generation Action Plan expired in December 2023 and that should now be new plan which will serve as the successor plan to the expired one.

He maintained that the workshop is part of the efforts to ensure that key stakeholders contribute to the process of developing, implementing, monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the plan.

He referenced that they adopted the same practice during the development of the past two national plans as they made consultations both at regional and national levels for which the ideas generated informed the First- and Second-Generation Plans.

He said that a major focus of the workshop is to reflect on the last plan, taking into consideration what was accomplished, challenges and the way forward, which will lead them into second phase of their engagement, which is to define their priority for the next national action plan.