journal of international peacekeeping 24 (2020) 1-52 JOUP brill.com/joup What Fueled the Far-Reaching Impact of the Windhoek Declaration and Namibia Plan of Action as a Milestone for Gender Mainstreaming in UN Peace Support Operations and Where Is Implementation 20 Years Later? Nina J. Lahoud* New York City, New York, United States
[email protected] Abstract Acknowledging that progress in gender mainstreaming was woefully deficient, the United Nations (UN) Department of Peacekeeping Operations organized a May 2000 Seminar in Windhoek on “Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peace Support Operations”, hosted by the Namibian Government, which produced two ground-breaking outcome documents that had an enormous impact on the adoption of landmark UN Security Council resolution 1325 on “Women and peace and security” five * Nina Lahoud is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Interna tional Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC), the Global Leadership Council of Seeds of Peace, and the Advisory Board of PassBlue. Appointed by the Office of the UN Secretary-General, she also serves as a member of the Advisory Group to the UN High-Level Task Force on Financing for Gender Equality. She was selected as a 2013–2014 Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative Senior Fellow, and de veloped a project for establishing a “Network of Gender Justice Mentors and Peers” with the pilot phase implemented in Timor-Leste with women lawyers and judges and their counterparts in other countries (see http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/09/global- charge). Her de cision to leave a Wall Street law firm in 1983 to join the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) as the first woman Legal Adviser ever appointed to a mission began her 33-year UN career dealing with rule of law, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, development and gender issues while serving at Headquarters offices and in six UN peacekeeping opera- tions (in Lebanon, Namibia, Cambo dia, Croatia, Kosovo, East Timor) at critical historical junctures.