Second Regional Meeting on Gender Equality in the Military

The Second Meeting of Representatives of the Gender Equality Mechanisms in the Ministries of Defence (MoD) took place in Skoplje on 9-10 October 2012. Representatives of the Ministries of Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia met under the auspices of UNDP/SEESAC’s Support for Gender Mainstreaming in Security Sector Reform in the Western Balkans project, continuing the vibrant exchange of knowledge and experience initiated in Przno, Montenegro earlier this year.

The meeting was envisioned as a place where colleagues from across the region could exchange information about the implementation of ongoing activities designed to advance gender equality in their respective militaries.

A significant part of the meeting was devoted to planning and coordination of forthcoming activities. Efforts to implement the UN SC Resolution 1325 were discussed in detail, as well as the efforts to institutionalize the MoDs Gender Focal Points and enhance their capacities.

The meeting provided the setting for the initial discussions regarding the development of the methodology for a regional survey on the position of women in the armed forces and MoDs.  The Working Group nominated earlier this year by all four beneficiary MoDs, held its first meeting and developed a draft questionnaire for the survey. It is expected that the questionnaire will be finalized and distributed before the end of the year.

ABOUT THE BASELINE RESEARCH ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE MILITARY

The low number of female military personnel, and the particularly low number of them in command and management positions, indicates that more needs to be done to attract and retain women in the armed forces. Ministries of Defence need to review and improve their HR policies in order to attract more of high quality women candidates to the military profession, and ensure that they are given equal career development prospects as their male counterparts.

In order to support the reform process, UNDP/SEESAC will help MoD’s conduct a regional survey exploring the current position of and prospects for women in the military. The results of the survey will be complemented by a review of recruitment and retention polices all of which result in the development of a set of recommendations, which will outline concrete steps that should be taken in order to improve this aspect of HR management. The survey methodology is based on a similar regional survey which explored the position of women in eight police services in the South East Europe.