This is the first of two roundtable discussions to exchange knowledge and expertise on the UN Security Council's group of elected member states (E10) in favour of women, peace and security (WPS).

This event focuses on Sweden in the UN Security Council during 2017-18 and civil society engagement. Sweden entered the Security Council in 2017 with a feminist foreign policy and a vested interest in promoting Women, Peace and Security (WPS).

Consequently, Sweden had a concrete aim of contributing to women’s inclusion in UN Security Council (UNSC) debates and decisions. As a step to achieving these intentions and goals, Sweden built extensive and active collaborations with civil society.

The roundtable brings together researchers from NAI, PRIO and the University of Pretoria, as well as government policy-, and decision-makers, representatives from the UN, and civil society stakeholders from both Sweden and Africa.

Watch the recorded webinar here:

While the call for improved state-civil society engagement rings strong in WPS, there is a need to recognize that collaboration and commitment can take many different forms and that civil society consists of a diverse set of actors. Thus, this roundtable focuses on learning from key experiences during Sweden’s Security Council term. By encouraging a critical debate on different approaches, the webinar seeks to contribute with insights that can be used to strengthen engagements between UNSC states and diverse civil society actors.

To that end, the roundtable presents and builds on the findings from the PRIO paper Sweden as an Elected Member of the UN Security Council: Promoting Women, Peace and Security as Core Council Business, 2017-18 Pdf, 1.7 MB, opens in new window.. First, several different variants of state-civil society collaboration will be outlined based on insights from the abovementioned research report. Thereafter, the webinar will turn to learning more about the civil society perspective, and the various opportunities observed during Sweden’s term. The roundtable will consider examples of meaningful cooperation between government and civil society organisations, including practical lessons learned by all actors. Lastly, the event concludes with reflections on what these lessons can entail for current practices of elected states.

This event is organized by:

• The Nordic Africa Institute, hosting the webinar
• The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) External link, opens in new window.
• University of Pretoria External link, opens in new window.