Netherlands

2015: Attended the state consultations on the SSD in Geneva – led by Norway + 2015: Present at the First International Conference on the SSD in Oslo.

Approached for possibly hosting an implementation workshop (Sept 2015). Keen on continuing to support SSD publicly and reaching out to other states, incl non-supportive Europeans. Despite this, still lingering concerns with “not perfect” Guidelines, would like to re-open them… Among first endorsees.

August 2016: Outreach letter sent in advance of CAAC Open Debate.

January 2017: Bede met with representatives from the Dutch MFA in the Hague. They had received the save the date for the Argentina conference, and were keen to hear that invitations were on the way. They intend to be represented there, and will have things to say about how they’re fulfilling many of the commitments in the Declaration. That being said, it seems unlikely that they’ll have anything concrete to say regarding implementation of the Guidelines, as the MFA still appear to be having difficulties even having a dialogue on this with their own MoD. Bede shared a copy of the draft collection of law and policies, and suggested that could perhaps be used as a tool to aid conversation between the ministries. One of the MFA staff mentioned that he had given a briefing that included reference to the Safe Schools Declaration to a group of military officers from both Belgium and Germany. Bede also met with a man at the MFA who has just recently been given a two-year position within the ministry to work on education during conflict. Unclear at present what the role will entail.

March 2017: Contact with Vero. Ministry of Defense shared an example of what they consider implementation and what they did was take an example from two evaluation reports wherein the Ministry of Defense assisted with the rebuilding of schools (they point out that during the police mission in Afghanistan the Dutch mission contributed to the improvements of school rates by building schools and financing school books. In another example they refer to a gender program that improved literacy for girls.) Moreover, their examples are from respectively 2012 and 2014, so before the launch of the Safe Schools Declaration. Attended Buenos Aires Conference on Safe Schools. Declined to provide a speaker for the discussion on accountability, but made a strong statement of support from the floor during the General Debate.

March 2017: Save the Children and Human Right Watch met with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands to discuss implementation of the SSD.

April 2017: Attended post-conference briefing for missions in New York.

May 2017: Save the Children Netherlands is engaging with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense to pursue the discussion on the implementation of the Declaration. Save NL sent a letter to Tom Middendorp, the Chief of Defence (CHOD) of the Dutch military. The letter was signed by Pim and was sent on his own behalf. In the letter he asked for clarification on what has been done with the Guidelines since they were signed by Minister Koenders. This was necessary since our contact at the Ministry of Defence has refused to meet with the Dutch GCPEA coalition on multiple occasions and has not provided any clear information on what has been done on implementation. We’re hoping that this will trigger a response from someone higher up the chain of command. We have not yet received a reply.

June 2017: Save the Children Netherlands reached out to the newly elected members of the Netherlands parliament and received positive feedback on the Declaration. Still waiting for a reply from the Ministry of Defense’s Chief of Defense on a letter that STC Netherlands’s CEO sent last month. Save the Children New York raised the matter of implementation with the Permanent Mission of the Netherlands.

August 2017: Save the Children Netherlands is developing an advocacy strategy for implementation of the Declaration, with the Netherlands’ upcoming membership of the UN Security Council as a framework.

September 2017: Save the Netherlands is developing and advocacy strategy for implementing the Declaration, with the Netherlands’ upcoming membership of the UN Security Council as a framework. GCPEA sent a letter to the ambassador in New York asking to raise the issue on attacks and military use, draw attention to the Declaration and the Guidelines during the Open Debate on children and armed conflict. As incoming UNSC member we also asked to encourage Japan , Ukraine and UK to endorse.

October 2017: Cristal attended a meeting with the First Secretary Yaron Oppenheimer in order to conduct advocacy in lead-up to the Open Debate on CAAC, with the goal of encourage the Netherlands to include certain messages in their interventions. The intervention will be drafted in capital, and the First Secretary wasn’t sure what they were going to prioritise, and didn’t commit to anything. He said that they are going to be more politically strategic this year, given that they are coming onto the Security Council in March 2018. He also said that CAC has not really been a priority in discussions with the new government so far, but they will participate in the working group and take the issues into account. They want to make a difference in terms of implementation of the mandate and agenda on the ground. He asked about what the Coalition is doing to support implementation of the content of the Declaration and Guidelines, so I told him about the December implementation workshop and plans for possible regional or country-specific workshops in the next year or two. He didn’t seem very interested in following up about these activities though.

March 2018: Save the Children Netherlands was invited to meet with the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs to discuss the Declaration and Guidelines. PEIC met with the embassy in Doha to discuss their priorities for UN Security Council membership, highlight the upcoming release of Education Under Attack 2018, and suggest that they host a briefing on the Declaration for the diplomatic community in Doha.

July 2018: UNSC Open Debate on children and armed conflict. 1) Joined Argentina’s joint statement to the UN SC during the open debate on children and armed conflict. 2) Mentioned and welcomed the Safe Schools Declaration during the statement to the SC. 3) also joined the statement of Canada on behalf of the GoF which mentioned the Safe Schools Declaration.

October 2018: During GCPEA briefing for GoF WPS, Netherlands asked if/how we work with the Global Partnership for Education.

October 2018: Brussels Briefing to EU COHAFA/COHOM: Netherlands asked if we were actively encouraging member states to updates their codes of conduct. The delegate advised that the Guidelines have been incorporated into their military trainings. She also asked if we were working with existing mechanisms to increase accountability.

March 2019: Clustered Interactive Dialogue with the SRSG CAAC Virginia Gamba, HRC Geneva: joined Norway’s joint statement on the Safe Schools Declaration.

September 2020: The Netherlands Defence Academy co-organised an online seminar on the protection of schools during armed conflict on 10 September 2020.

October 2021: cosponsored UNSRC2601.

November 2022: Endorsed the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (EWIPA) on 18 November during an International Conference hosted by Ireland, the leader and penholder behind the Declaration.