Metro Manila – The government of Sweden and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Philippines launched a new partnership to support the ingtegration of the women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda into peacebuilding efforts in the Bangsamoro region.

H.E. Ambassador of Sweden to the Philippines Harald Fries and UNDP Philippines Resident Representative Selva Ramachandran inaugurated the collaboration in a virtual launch with the Bangsamoro Women’s Commission (BWC). Through the agreement, Sweden will support UNDP and BWC’s on-going work in implementing the Bangsamoro Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security alongside the new Bangsamoro Community Resilience Framework. The initiative also aims to promote women empowerment and strengthen communities against natural disasters, conflicts, and pandemics respectively.

Among the key projects that the partnership will cover is the Women Insider Mediators – Rapid Action and Mobilization Platform (WIM – RAMP)—a group of community-based women mediators from Moro and Indigenous Peoples communities in BARMM who are committed to work together towards the empowerment of Bangsamoro women as peacebuilders, conflict mediators, and community leaders in the region.

Ambassador Fries, in his message, emphasized the importance of the partnership and noted that the promotion of women empowerment and gender equality is mainstreamed in Swedish government work, as Sweden is known globally for its feminist government and feminist foreign policy.

He further said that “gender equality is an objective in itself. However, one should also see gender equality as an essential element to achieve other objectives, such as peace, security and development. Studies show that the quality, legitimacy and sustainability of peace agreements and peace building are significantly higher when women are included as active participants and have real influence in the peace process.”

“The launch of this project and its subsequent implementation will certainly contribute to the implementation of the Bangsamoro Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, especially in this period of transition,” said MP Hadja Bainon Karon, Chairperson of the Bangsamoro Women’s Commission.

Developed with the support of UNDP and other UN agencies, the Bangsamoro Women Commission launched the Bangsamoro Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (RAP-WPS) 2020-2022 in October 2020, which seeks to enhance the role of Bangsamoro women in the implementation of the peace agreement and the protection of their human rights in conflict and post-conflict transformation.

In his message, Dr. Ramachandran noted that UNDP “acknowledges the resilience of women mediators and peacebuilders in the face of intersecting vulnerabilities brought about by conflicts, natural disasters and the on-going pandemic. With Sweden’s support, we will be able to expand the work being done by the BWC and WIM-RAMP members in humanitarian response, conflict prevention and peacebuilding.”

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