The 1325 Scorecard – WIIS | Women In International Security

At the 2014 Wales Summit Meeting, the Heads of State and Government of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) acknowledged that the integration of “gender perspectives into Alliance activities throughout NATO’s three core tasks (i.e., Collective Defence, Crisis Management, and Cooperative Security) will contribute to a more modern, ready and responsive NATO.”

The 1325 Scorecard project was supported by a grant from the NATO Science for Peace Program (SPS) and is carried out by Women In International Security (WIIS) and the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP). The Scorecard is a methodology that permits an assessment of how NATO member states (including partners) are integrating the principles of UNSCR 1325 into their military operations, and it has three main objectives.

First, the Scorecard is intended as an assessment and evaluation tool. The Scorecard encompasses a simple set of indicators that evaluate how well or how poorly NATO member states (and partners) are implementing the principles of UNSCR 1325 in military organizations and operations. The indicators are not intended to be comprehensive. Rather, they seek to identify a limited set of critical indicators and benchmarks that provide a picture of where a country stands in meeting the objectives of UNSCR 1325 and Bi-SCD 40-1.1 More specifically, the Scorecard measures how well the principles of UNSCR 1325 are integrated into national security policies and operations, and whether there are dedicated

At the political level the Scorecard examines whether there is political will to implement the principles of UNSCR 1325. For example, has a NAP been adopted and are specific resources set aside for implementation? At the institutional policy and practice level the Scorecard measures whether gender is institutionalized and mainstreamed, and whether gender perspectives are integrated in all phases of military operations (i.e. planning, execution, and evaluations). In addition, the Scorecard identifies indicators that can demonstrate whether all barriers to the active and meaningful participation of women in all aspects of military activities and operations have been eliminated. Finally, the Scorecard examines whether monitoring and accountability mechanisms are in place and to what extent sex-disaggregated data is collected and lessons learned captured.

The second objective of the 1325 Scorecard is to function as an educational tool that allows NATO member and partner states to learn from the experiences of others states. Numerous studies show that there is still little awareness and understanding of UNSCR 1325 and WPS. There is a lot of talk about gender mainstreaming but many people continue to equate gender with women and gender mainstreaming with increasing the number of women. Similarly, there is an increasing awareness within military establishments that conflict affects men and women differently. However, military establishments have a hard time figuring out what that means for them in terms of operations and how to convey this to military personnel. By sharing best practices, the 1325 Scorecard becomes powerful tool and holds militaries accountable for developing a greater understanding of gender mainstreaming.

Lastly, the Scorecard also facilitates standardization across NATO member and partner states in training, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of UNSCR 1325 and WPS in the context of NATO-led missions and operations. Each state has a NAP with diverging objectives, focal points, and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. The Scorecard provides a common platform with standards that can be applied to any state and promote a shared gender perspective.