having more open public discussions on the gender roles and perspectives of women/girls involvement in male-dominated sectors like the security sector. Although numbers of women in higher ranks in our armed forces or state police remain below the set quotas, the equivalent in a number of other NATO members or EU Member states do not appear more promising either. This reference has effortlessly and artificially leaped Albania into a “championing” position in the international fora when it comes to translated women quota in leadership positions even beyond the security sector. Women and girls often experience difficulties in proving themselves as the right leadership alternative. They find themselves in the middle of a patriarchal culture, artificially having promotions to token leadership positions, if not more. This is challenged in itself by the constant political influence in the Albanian traditional institutional customs, let alone the ‘equal opportunity’ wordings of the strategic and long terms policies being translated from paper into in practice in a dry or ungendered way. To create a new path forward, security and defence institutions must develop an understanding of how women and girls experience security and what skills women and girls harness to secure themselves, their families, and communities. These insights can inform policies and strategies that redefine institutions, serve as roadmaps for new security ideals around defence, crisis management, and cooperative security, and inform education and training programs for girls and women in security. STREAMLINING/INTEGRATING GENDER EQUALITY PRINCIPLES IN THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENDA The topic of the involvement of women in the defence and security sector started to gain traction in 2011 when Albania officially started implementing the UN resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security based on an inter-institutional approach on a local and national level. Despite the ongoing progress made over the last decade, the figures on paper struggle to counter the old, fixed narrative that the security and defence sector is a male dominated domain. Albania adopted its first National Action Plan(NAP) on Women, Peace and Security in 2018 3F 4 , in compliance with the UNSCR Resolution 1325 adopted in 2000. 4 Albania-Action-Plan-on-Resolution-1325_ENG-CMD-524-11.09.2019-1-2.pdf(peacewomen.org) 7