UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decried the failure to bring women into peacemaking, pointing to statistics showing that between 1990 and 2017, women constituted only 8 per cent of negotiators and 5 per cent of witnesses and signatories to major peace processes.<br />''<br />''<br />''Speaking in UN Security Council, Guterres urged all countries to invest in promoting the equality and empowerment of women, which he stressed is also critical to preventing and ending conflicts and building peace and prosperity in the world for all. <br />''<br />''<br />''<span style="color: #222222;">Guterres said he has formed a group to take emergency measures to increase the number of women in UN peace operations, stressing that it is "crippling" to the UN's credibility that women represent only 4 per cent of its military peacekeepers and 10 per cent of its international police. </span>