Gender Awareness Trust has mobilised stakeholders in Katsina to push for the implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security policy.

A representative of the group, Halima Abba-Ibrahim, disclosed this on Friday in Katsina during a meeting for the Building Inclusive Peace project.

She said that the meeting was organised by GAT, in collaboration with Tetra Spring Tech, to look at how to implement the WPS Action Plan.

The WPS Agenda is a global initiative focused on integrating women’s perspectives and participation in peace and security efforts.

She added that a policy document called the State Action Plan was recently approved by Governor Dikko Radda, which is the reason for the meeting to identify the WPS mechanism.

Ms Abba-Ibrahim said, “The mechanism can be a group. It can be an organisation or an association working on peace and WPS. So, after identifying the action plan, we can look at how we will collaborate to ensure successful implementation in Katsina State. The policy document contains a lot of pillars that women can look up to and have, like a bit of relief.”

Ms Abba-Ibrahim noted that the goal is to foster inclusive and sustainable peace in Kaduna and Katsina by strengthening community resilience and enhancing gender-responsive prevention.

According to her, sustainable peace can be achieved through coordinated action among key stakeholders.

She, therefore, listed objectives of the meeting to include bringing together key stakeholders to identify and document existing peace and WPS mechanisms.

Others, she said, are to map out actors involved and highlight current priorities and opportunities for strengthening coordination, collaboration, and effective implementation of the state action plan on UNSCR 1325.

Some of the expected outcomes include having a clear list of state agencies, security actors, traditional and religious leaders, CSOs, women and youth groups, and development partners working on peace and WPS.

Other expected outcomes she mentioned include the documentation of peace structures at the state, local, and community levels, particularly peace committees, SAP coordination platforms, gender desks in security agencies, and mediation groups.

(NAN)