Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić delivered a lecture at the closing panel of this year’s UN Academy.
Pusić recalled the UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, underlining that investing in the education of women was an investment in the stabilization of peace, increasing the odds for achieving post-conflict prosperity.
In that regard, the minister stressed the need to combine peacekeeping missions and civil projects, recalling that 90% of women’s monthly income was reinvested into family, while that was the case with only 40% of men’s income. She said Croatia had gone from a recipient country to an object of international policy to the position to assist, for instance through the Centre of Excellence and Croatia House, assist in the building of state capacities in the region and beyond, for the purposed of future cooperation on important projects.
“The status of women is disappearing from the agendas of international discussions, and once ISAF withdraws from Afghanistan, this issue is in danger of falling victim to compromise, which is unacceptable,” Pusić said. She highlighted Croatia’s practical commitment to the issue of women’s global status through a series of initiatives, projects and contacts. She also stressed the pride in the Croatian forces in Afghanistan and their work on projects such as the construction of library and high school, as well as the midwife training centre in Mazar-i-Sharif that should be finished by the end of this year, which has sparked an international interest in building a network of similar centres, and not just in Afghanistan.