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military spending A new report from Oxfam warns that funding for global equality, conflict, peace and security assistance fell by 7 percent last year, while funding increased in dozens of countries last year.
In a report published jointly with Researchers Without Borders, the charity highlighted how Funding for women-led organizations and to Support LGBT+ communities This is being hit hard as aid cuts begin to roll in – there are going to be even bigger cuts from this year onwards. The report said women’s organizations are now receiving less than one cent of every dollar of aid worldwide.
The UK is one country that is making huge cuts in foreign aid from this year, with £40 per cut being redirected towards defence. Projects supporting women and girls have been particularly singled out for cuts by the government.
Charities called on UN members, including the UK, to change their stance and some of the military spending Back to peace-building. If nothing changes, nearly half of women’s rights organizations are expected to close within six months, while nearly three-quarters have already had to lay off staff, the report said.
Amina Hersi, Oxfam’s head of gender, rights and justice, said: “Feminism-led peace has not failed – it has been betrayed.
“A generation after world leaders promised to give women a seat at the table, the same powerful states that laid the blueprint have not properly supported it. Women peacebuilders are being left to nurture broken communities, shouldering most of the responsibility, but without sufficient political space or financial support to do so.”
In October 2000, a UN pledge called Security Council Resolution 1325 established what is known as the Women, Peace and Security Agenda – a plan to include women in decision-making and peace-building efforts during conflict. It is also designed to enhance protection against gender-based violence during war.
The report found that it has had some successes, including increasing women’s participation in “informal community-level peace-building efforts in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan”.
“However, formal peace processes remain male-dominated, with women comprising only 5 percent of negotiators and 9 percent of peace negotiators in UN-led processes in 2023.”
In Colombia, more than 180 female human rights defenders were murdered in 2023 alone, while in the DRC only 13 percent of parliamentary seats are held by women and conflict-induced sexual and gender-based violence is widespread, it found.
Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, has claimed that more than 28,000 women and girls have been killed in Gaza and many have suffered violence so extreme that it should be considered a genocide in its own right. Israel denies all allegations that its military operation in Gaza has broken treaties and conventions that create the laws of war and international humanitarian law.
A Palestinian who participated in the research said, “Women in Gaza have led the humanitarian response…really acting as peace-builders.” “We are not just bereaved mothers or helpless widows. We are community leaders, journalists, doctors and organizers. We need to be at the table where decisions are made, including decisions about the reconstruction of Gaza.”
But the report makes clear that “declining funding” threatens women-led peace-building efforts.
Hersey said, “Feminist peace is a political imperative, not an optional extra.” “Unless governments change their stance now, [Women, Peace and Security] The agenda will be remembered as just another broken promise.
This article was produced as part of The Independent Rethinking global aid Project