Brief of the Virtual Meeting on the Preparation of Canada’s Third National Action Plan

On January 27^th, 2022, the Research Network on Women, Peace and Security (RN-WPS) organized its first virtual event: a dialogue between scholars and public servants, and a teach-in between scholars and civil society. Both events aimed to reflect and share the challenges faced by implementing the National Action Plans (NAPs), focusing particularly on the areas to be improved upon while Canada prepares it’s third NAP. In this blog, we highlight the provocative thoughts, concerns and experiences participants had on women, peace and security, and NAPs and conclude with recommended actions to consider in Canada’s NAP (C-NAP).

Issues raised in the meeting:

• Canada’s NAPs aim to align itself with the Gender-Based Analysis (GBA+). Canada’s primary focus is applying GBA+ to all its programs and projects. The participants noted that links between WPS and GBA+ are unclear; while the WPS Agenda is limited to women’s issues in post-conflict settings, the GBA+ tool is limited to programs and projects within Canada (i.e. non-conflict settings). Currently, Global Affairs Canada (GAC), the Department of National Defence (DND), the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), in partnership with Public Safety Canada (PS), Status of Women Canada (SWC), Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and the Department of Justice are committed to implementing the WPS agenda in Canada.
• There has been difficulty in applying GBA+ in hiring. For example, how do we measure systematic disadvantage (racism and discrimination faced by candidates from racialized background; in education, workplace, promotions, scholarships, etc.) in hiring and apply affirmative action?
• Participants shared challenges in identifying and measuring (qualitative and quantitative data) the successes of the WPS agenda. For example, if the WPS agenda is only for women and girls affected by conflict or local women or women peacekeepers?
• Securing funding for doing WPS work is another challenge in Canada and abroad. There is a lack of funding commitments and a massive amount of work that women are expected to do to achieve WPS objectives. Women are forced to work voluntarily (adding more burden on women’s shoulders), or WPS issues go without being addressed.
• There is lots of confusion around WPS and NAPs: who are the beneficiaries? What categories of women are considered conflict-affected in a post-war situation?
• Women organizations working on WPS in war-affected countries see no transformation concerning women’s livelihoods, peace and security—even after the implementation of NAPs. WPS has become a widely politicized agenda; only a few women on the top are benefiting from it, and NAPs are not reaching out to women who are real survivors of conflict and violence.
• Canada’s NAP must be domesticized to address local issues, including violence against Indigenous women and girls, refugee women, women of color, Black women, the LGBTQ+ community, elderly women, and immigrant women.
• There is a big challenge in monitoring the impacts of the WPS agenda-what frameworks and indicators need to be developed, who will do this work, and who will fund it?
• WPS agenda is not only a women’s issue; it’s a societal issue. There is a need for men and boys' productive and collective engagement as we move forward. For example,

Should “WPS” be reconceptualized to reflect something like “gender, peace and security”? Cognizant that women’s lives and positions in society remain marginal compared to men’s, and those women have agency to champion the WPS agenda, having more men engage in this transformational work should not be used to usurp women’s power and benefit an already privileged gender category, but rather to make this everyone’s business for the WPS agenda to succeed.

• Central-level women organizations have access to most of the funding. Funding is not going to grassroots women organizations doing most of the work and supporting the WPS agenda.
• Covid-19 has exacerbated women’s situation. For example, there is rise in domestic and gender-based violence, poverty, health crisis, housing crisis, unemployment in Canada and abroad. More work is required to address these challenges in CNAP.
• Currently, WPS is concerned with white liberal feminists as central to its operation, ensuring WPS is not co-opted while doing this work.

Recommended actions provided for consideration for departments and organizations involved in designing, implementing, and monitoring C-NAP

• Bring women’s lived experiences and knowledge into policy debates for effective change through documentation.
• Peer-review of the NAPs for measuring the impacts, including monthly or quarterly reports by government and non-governmental organizations who implement NAPs of WPS.
• Focus on local WPS agenda to include issues such as anti-racism education, gender violence against women and girls, safe housing, health crisis, and poverty.
• Youth can be agents of change. Mobilizing and teaching youth on WPS agenda.
• Create a solid understanding of what feminist solidarity must look at through developing a concrete framework by government and non-government organization implementing WPS and NAPs.
• Government and non-government organizations implementing NAPs of the WPS agenda should also consider women’s land rights, citizenship, and climate justice and allocate adequate budget and other resources to address them.
• Develop a concrete action plan on engaging men and boys on women, peace and security agenda.
• Develop a clear vision of feminist monitoring.
• Develop concrete mentoring youth programs.
• Develop indicators for peace and security to measure NAPs outcomes.

Conclusion

The most pressing issue that arose in the meeting was the fact that there is no significant change on the WPS agenda both in Canada and internationally. There is a lack of funding commitment from donors and the respective countries on the WPS agenda. This offers one possible explanation on why WPS issues are given less priority and left behind. In Canada, there is lack of clarity about WPS issues and the NAP implementation process. There is also lack of coordination between the NAPs implementing departments. Also, there was concern around localizing the WPS agenda and developing concrete tools to measure NAPs outcomes. Overall, there is an urgent need of co-constructing and re-imaging and build non-hierarchical and inclusive NAPs of WPS to bring all women.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. Nafisa Ahmed Abdulhamid for reading a previous blog draft and offering her excellent feedback and edits. We would also like to thank all the roundtable participants for sharing their invaluable insights.