In October 2024, WOSCONET marked the 24th anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security with a day-long public dialogue held in Enugu, bringing together women peacebuilders, security sector representatives, civil society leaders, religious figures, and young people to assess Nigeria's implementation of the resolution's commitments and chart a path forward for women's meaningful participation in conflict prevention and peace processes. UNSCR 1325, adopted in 2000, was the first UN Security Council resolution to explicitly recognise the disproportionate and unique impact of armed conflict on women and to call for women's full and equal participation in all peace and security decision-making processes.
The dialogue opened with a reflection on the current security landscape in Southeast Nigeria, facilitated by WOSCONET's programme team drawing on community-level monitoring data. Participants discussed the everyday security concerns of women and girls in Enugu communities — from the impact of Monday sit-at-home disruptions on market trading and income, to the heightened vulnerability of women travelling alone in rural areas, to the role of unresolved land disputes in sustaining inter-community tensions. The discussion highlighted that women in conflict-affected communities are not passive victims — they are active negotiators, information brokers, and informal mediators who frequently de-escalate conflict situations long before formal peace processes are engaged. Yet these contributions remain largely invisible and unsupported.
"Peace is not built in spite of women — it is built because of them. UNSCR 1325 reminds us that women's inclusion in peace processes is non-negotiable."
A panel featuring women from communities that had experienced intercommunal conflict offered powerful testimony about how women's networks had served as back-channel communication lines between opposing groups, smuggled food and medicines across community boundaries during blockades, and advocated for the release of community members detained during security operations. Panellists noted with frustration that when formal peace negotiations were eventually convened by state or federal authorities, women were invariably absent from the table — despite having been the ones sustaining the social fabric of their communities through the worst periods of tension. This gap between women's informal peacebuilding roles and their formal exclusion from peace processes is precisely what UNSCR 1325 was designed to close.
The dialogue also addressed Nigeria's National Action Plan (NAP) on UNSCR 1325, which was renewed in 2022 and provides the framework for federal and state-level implementation. Participants heard from a policy expert on the gap between the NAP's commitments and on-the-ground reality in Enugu State, where no state-level corollary action plan exists and the NAP's provisions have yet to be systematically communicated to women's organisations, security agencies, or local government administrations. WOSCONET's team presented a set of recommendations for Enugu State, including the development of a state Women, Peace, and Security action plan, the establishment of a women's advisory board to the state security apparatus, and the allocation of dedicated funding for women peacebuilders in conflict-affected LGAs.
The dialogue concluded with the formation of a WOSCONET-anchored Women, Peace, and Security Network for Enugu State, bringing together the participating organisations and individuals as a standing coalition. The network's first action was a letter to the Enugu State Governor calling for the appointment of women advisors in the State Security Council and for civil society consultation in any future community security initiatives in the state. WOSCONET will coordinate the network's activities and serve as its secretariat, producing an annual Women, Peace, and Security situation report for Enugu State anchored in community-level data.