Developing a national action plan on women, peace and security in Ethiopia.

The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and its nine subsequent resolutions comprise the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. The WPS agenda relies on four pillars: prevention, protection, participation, and relief and recovery, to recognize the need of women's full, equal and meaningful participation in conflict resolution and peace building, and the need to protect women and girls during and after armed conflict. National Action Plans (NAP) are tools to translate the WPS agenda into national and local action.

This background document highlights the key steps in developing a NAP on WPS in Ethiopia. The document draws from experiences of other countries to support the Government of Ethiopia and other stakeholders in developing the first NAP for the country. The full document is complemented by a background brief for quick access to key points of information.

The document identifies key steps in developing a NAP, including securing commitment from stakeholders, setting up committees to lead the process, conducting necessary studies and assessments that will be used as base for targets, ensuring inclusive cooperation with a wide range of stakeholders and in particular meaningful participation of civil society, and setting up trackable processes.

The document also recognizes possible challenges in the NAP development process, which include the lack of political will, lack of effective coordination and communication, failure to meaningfully include the civil society and especially men, and lack of resources. A successful NAP process is charachterized by political will and a clear roadmap, broad representation and participation from CSOs, strong leadership and coordination from the lead ministry, context awareness, adequate resources and systemic monitoring and evaluation.