The Working Group on Women, Youth, Peace and Security in West Africa and the Sahel (WGWYPS-WAS) has currently convened for its Annual meeting in Liberia.
The working group annual meeting is comprised of representatives from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Chad, Côte d’ Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo including Liberia.
One of the key activities of the Group is the annual meeting and the venue is agreed upon each year at such event.
For the past 10 years, this meeting has been an opportunity for members to meet and share experiences and best practices for the harmonization of regional initiatives in the promotion and implementation of the following United Nations Security Council resolutions on women, youth, peace, and security.
Meanwhile, the gathering is aimed at strengthening the synergy of action in the implementation and follow-up of UN Security Council
Resolutions 1325 (2000), 2250 (2015), and subsequent on women, youth, peace, and security in the region.
The gathering which began from September 19 and runs up to September 23, 2022 focuses on training members on proposal and concept writing for projects as well as resource mobilization strategy and this is expected to climax with the annual conference.
The regional participants of the Annual Meeting include representatives of the National Coordination/Representation of the Working Group, a youth representatives from each of the 16 countries; resource persons from UNOWAS, UN WOMEN, and ECOWAS Gender Development
Centre (EGDC).
While at the national level there are two representatives from each region of Liberia, one representative from the ministries of women and youth, one representative from each UN agency, representatives from NGOs working on WPS and YPS issues, research institutes and universities.
During the opening of the event on Monday September 19 in Monriva, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection represented by its Deputy Minister for Administration, Parleh Harris, encouraged the Working Group to build an inclusive platform for information sharing.
She then urged the representatives with women in majority to ensure that the Group is strengthened and pledged that the government through the Ministry is committed to working along with them and supporting their ideology.
Ambassador Juli Endee thrilled the hall with one of renditions and give her blessings to the participants as the traditional queen of Liberia while the Chairperson of the Working Group in Liberia, Dr. Meima Sirleaf Karneh, welcomed the participants and expressed joy that the sisters and other youth representatives including the organizers were able to have safe travels to Liberia, the land of liberty; something she attributed to the tireless effort of Liberia’s Deputy Commissioner for Naturalization at Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, Asatu Bah-Kenneth.
Meanwhile, today the conference participants will join stakeholders as well as women and youth from the Working Groups representations other Liberians to celebrate the International Day of Peace.
The program which is part of the Working Group’s event is expected to begin with a parade from the Old Ministry of Gender on the Capitol By-pass to the Monrovia City Hall where an indoor program is to be held commemorating the day.
Established in April 2009, the WGWYPS-WAS is an inclusive platform for experience sharing, analysis, and participatory evaluation of initiatives and efforts in the West African and Sahel region for the promotion and implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions 1325 (2000), 2250 (2015) and subsequent resolutions on the involvement of women and youth in conflict prevention and peacebuilding mechanisms.
