Regional Women's Conference on Security Sector Reform and Governance

Since July 2019, FES PSCC is implementing the "Security for All" project, co-funded by the European Union Delegation in Dakar, which aims to promote inclusive security and democratic governance through the participation of civil society organisations in Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon and the ECOWAS region. One of the main components of this project is the establishment of a regional women's platform for security sector reform and governance.  The operationalisation activities of this platform were started respectively with an expert meeting and a regional conference for the launch followed by virtual sessions for capacity building of civil society actors (in SSR, advocacy, lobbying and communication) and cohesion between the Defence and Security Forces as well as discussions on better involvement of women and consideration of their needs in this area. Since then, several women's civil society organisations from Cameroon, Mali and Nigeria have joined the regional platform according to the provisions that were discussed during the previous meetings.

This conference, which brought together civil society organisations, defence and security forces and other stakeholders of several nationalities, aimed specifically to :

• Take stock of what has emerged from previous meetings in terms of women's involvement in security sector reform and governance in Cameroon, Mali and Nigeria;
• To provide a space for exchange and reflection on building alliances to strengthen women's cooperation at national and regional levels.
• To deepen the discussion on the barriers faced by women and to reflect together on the opportunities and strategies to be implemented through an action plan;
• To establish an action plan that can be rolled out and piloted at national level by the working group, with the support of other actors;
• Create a lobbying alliance between women's organisations for political change and their involvement in the SSR/G processes at national level (Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria) as well as in the ECOWAS region.

In this sense, a national committee has been set up to coordinate the activities to be implemented at national level by the regional women's platform.