By Taban Henry
The Women Parliamentary Caucus (WPC) was commended for holding parties’ signatory to the Revitalized Agreement for the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) accountable to commit themselves to the implementation of the peace agreement.
This came on Thursday during the inauguration ceremony of the new Members of Parliament who are women nominated candidates from the three greater regions of South Sudan, Greater Bahr el Ghazal, Equatoria and Upper Nile, to form the National Women Parliamentary Caucus.
Speaking during the inauguration ceremony, Janice James the Senior Economic Advisor and the Representative of the RJMEC commended the Women Parliamentary Caucus for holding parties to the R-ARCSS on gender equality and quotas as pertains to women participation and engagement in the R-ARCSS.
Janice said that South Sudan Women Parliamentary Caucus (SSWPC) members have a voice that they can use to advance gender equality adding that they should use it well.
“The SSWPC’s role influencing the gender narrative in South Sudan will go down annually in the country, although the implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement has been challenged and the implementation of the 35% affirmative action across the board and mainstreaming of gender perspectives in all parts of South Sudan has not been fully implemented, some progress has been made,” she said.
She added that SSWPC seized the window to unify the women members of parliament from across different party lines to provide peer support to foster gender equality, legislative and policy agenda at the time where there is need for urgent increase of women’s participation in the peace process and in the implementation of the peace agreement in the Republic of South Sudan.
“In 2017 when this woman parliamentary caucus was launched, efforts to revitalize and reinvigorate the peace agreement were ongoing and RJMEC saw this as a much-needed opportunity to strengthen our collective approaches and strategies towards building sustainable peace,” she added.