Time to push the UN Women Peace and Security
Agenda beyond 'the usual suspects'

Over the last quarter-century, the UN Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda raised global awareness of the role of women in conflict. But much of its potential remains unrealised. The agenda is slow-moving and driven by top-down implementation. To succeed, the UN and other involved stakeholders must popularise WPS and expand it beyond diplomacy into a broader societal movement – especially in Africa, where the number of conflicts is rising and where the WPS agenda was first shaped.

Angela Muvumba Sellström and Daike Möhrle

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda aims to ensure that women assume active and leading roles in preventing conflict and building peace across the world. In the last quarter century, the UN Security Council has established a fundamental norm of integrating the needs and capacities of women into international conflict mitigation and management. The WPS agenda is based on ten UN Security Council cross-cutting thematic resolutions (1325, 1820, 1888, 1889, 1960, 2106, 2122, 2242, 2467 and 2493), and on a handful of related decisions by the body on issues such as human-trafficking (2331) and sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping (2272). It is also rooted in other UN documents, such as the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The WPS resolutions have changed how states and societies tackle conflict-related suffering in three mutually reinforcing ways:

1. They have raised awareness about the importance of including women in peace processes. They have shed light on the gendered impacts of conflicts and the importance of women in mediation, peacekeeping and peacebuilding.
2. They have promoted accountability in order to address impunity. They have established monitoring, reporting and sanctions to address sexual violence and punish perpetrators. Not just women, but also men, have been recognised as victims of sexual violence.
3. They have made gender a viable analytical tool. They have legitimised the collection of gender-disaggregated data and made evidence about and by women an institutional priority at the level of the UN.

Over the past decade, WPS resolutions have also addressed issues such as violent extremism, pandemics, disarmament and relief. In recent years, stakeholders have mobilised to push for initiatives to speed up implementation of the WPS agenda. One such initiative is the Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action (WPS-HA) Compact, a UN-initiated call for action started in 2021, which seeks to build a global movement. UN Women is its secretariat, and over 80 states and private-sector actors have signed the compact and have pledged financial, advocacy, policy and programmatic actions. Most importantly, they have volunteered to report on their progress. This type of movement is the next step in WPS implementation, since the compact seeks to mobilise a wide swathe of society through the private sector, civil society, research and education institutions, as well as governments.

Gender in peace and war

The WPS framework rests on two fact patterns External link, opens in new window. that are often obscured by their obviousness. First, gender differentiates the type of suffering experienced by people during conflict, and these distinctions merit attention. Armed violence disproportionately mobilises men and boys: they are the first to be recruited to combat and to be killed. However, women and girls suffer, too. They endure armed attacks, famine and forced migration. Sexual violence and exploitation often target them. The fact and the nature of women’s suffering in conflict had been largely ignored by states until WPS. Women were afterthoughts, the inconsequential collateral damage of conflict.

Second, the inclusion of different gender perspectives increases the chances of durable peace. Women are not just a nice ‘add-on’ to peace negotiations: they are part of the hard work of recovery, rebuilding and reconciliation. Their involvement improves the chances of lasting peace. This normative claim under WPS should be understood as an important finding in research on gender equality and peace. At the turn of the century, Mary Caprioli, an interdisciplinary pioneer in feminist research, examined statistically how gender equality relates to conflict, both domestically External link, opens in new window. and internationally External link, opens in new window.. In ‘Primed for Violence’, using data from 1960 to 2001, she showed that societies marked by higher gender inequality – indicated by high fertility rates and low female labour force participation – are more likely to experience internal, civil conflicts. Similarly, in ‘Gendered Conflict’, drawing on data covering 1960 to 1992, she demonstrated that states with a shorter history of female suffrage, lower female parliamentary representation and limited female labour force participation tend to rely more on military solutions when dealing with international disputes. Importantly, in both analyses, Caprioli controlled for alternative factors – such as military alliances, economic development and past conflicts – to strengthen the validity of her findings. Subsequent studies by other scholars show that gender equality is a predictor of less-violent wars, a lower chance of civil war and even of fewer instances of human rights abuse by states. In another pivotal study External link, opens in new window., Jana Krause, Werner Krause and Piia Bränfors found that peace agreements with female signatories are more durable and have a higher rate of implementation.

Gender inequality patterns arise from constructed patriarchal norms, roles and characteristics for women and men. These are tangled up with politics and socio-economic conditions. Though organized armed conflict has taken many forms across cultures and history, one pattern is clear: men overwhelmingly lead and fight wars. They also hold sway over the decisions that end violence. This concentration of power in male hands has troubling consequences for who gets to make peace — and who doesn’t. Jana Krause and her colleagues also found that women are severely underrepresented as signatories and as facilitators of peace agreements. Their research showed that only 10 per cent of 130 peace accords reached from 1990 to 2015 were signed by women; and that proportion did not increase even after the adoption of resolution 1325 in 2000. In another study External link, opens in new window. (from 2017), Karin Aggestam and Isak Svensson observed a slight increase of women in mediation roles, since the advent of the WPS agenda. However, between 1991 and 2014, women were involved in only 8 per cent of all formal mediation interventions.

Power thus excludes women, who remain largely absent from the decision-making processes that could lead to the end of a conflict. Yet women have political weight and a public role to play, particularly when it comes to effecting broad societal changes. Data from the research project Women in Resistance (WiRe) External link, opens in new window., initially hosted at the One Earth Future Foundation, but now at Harvard University, underscore that the presence of women in non-violent movements significantly enhances the chances of success of social protest movements. Women’s participation in such movements increases public mobilisation, legitimacy and organisational capacity. Gender and economic matters intersect in other important ways. Since female labour is largely relegated to small-scale agricultural work, services, care work and the informal sector, peacebuilding that neglects these sectors further marginalises nearly half of the civilian population.

A 2020 study External link, opens in new window. of violence among male political activists in Thailand – as well as of the attitudes and activities of both men and women in Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines and Libya – found that patriarchal values that prioritise male dominance and toughness can normalise violence and extremism. By contrast, men who support gender equality are less likely to endorse violence as a first choice, even in foreign policymaking. Similarly, a study comparing two rebel groups External link, opens in new window. from Burundi’s civil war (1994–2008) showed that some groups managed to successfully prevent rape. Despite wider cultural norms of gender inequality, certain rebel movements created preventive cultures that encouraged soldiers to adopt norms opposed to sexual violence.

The WPS agenda’s African roots and routes

African countries have been central in shaping the WPS agenda since the very beginning. The roots of resolution 1325 can be traced back to a 1999 UN peacekeeping seminar that produced the Windhoek Declaration and Namibia Plan of Action External link, opens in new window., which the UN also adopted. Namibia, a UN Security Council member from 1999 to 2000, played a leading role in getting the council to adopt the resolution and launch the WPS agenda. In the quarter century that has passed since the adoption of resolution 1325, most of the UN peacekeeping missions formed have been deployed to Africa. African countries have been heavily involved in the WPS agenda – some as major troop contributors to UN peacekeeping; others as sites of vibrant feminist grassroots mobilisation against armed violence. Over the past 25 years, more than 30 African countries have also been elected to the non-permanent member seats on the UN Security Council (some more than once), where they have further shaped both the global and the continental WPS agenda.

The African Union (AU) and its member states have promoted the WPS agenda in Africa through legal guidelines, training manuals, normative frameworks and legal instruments like Aspiration 6 of Agenda 2063 External link, opens in new window. (2015), the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa External link, opens in new window. (2004), the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa External link, opens in new window. (2003), the African Union Gender Policy External link, opens in new window. (2009), and the AU Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls External link, opens in new window. (2025). The AU created a Special Envoy on WPS in 2014 and has had a gender parity principle for elected commissioners and senior management. The AU Commission’s Continental Results Framework monitors and reports on WPS implementation from 2018 to 2028.

Top-down and technocratic implementation

Through multilateral and bilateral cooperation, the UN and the AU have used WPS tools to advance political and peace-support missions and initiatives. As state-led instruments, they are limited. There is little evidence of their transformative potential. Moreover, there are still many challenges to be resolved in their implementation.

National action plans. To facilitate the implementation of the WPS agenda, the UN Security Council encourages member states to adopt national action plans (NAPs), regardless of whether the country is in a state of peace, war or other type of armed conflict. The NAPs are meant to provide strategic guidance and technical tools to meet WPS goals. As of today, 108 member states (56 per cent) have adopted a NAP; some of them have even evaluated their plan and have formulated a revised version. The proportion of African countries that have developed a NAP is slightly higher than the world average: 33 out of 55 (60 per cent). Despite progress, NAPs often lack resources and coordination with civil society, leaving implementation to a small number of government technocrats — sometimes just one.

Women’s mediation networks. The WPS agenda is also facilitated by a number of women’s mediation networks (WMNs). One such network is the AU Network of African Women in Conflict Prevention and Mediation, officially referred to as FemWise-Africa, which was a forerunner of WMNs worldwide. FemWise has established chapters in Uganda, Malawi, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe, joining Africa’s regional networks for Central and Southern Africa. The network has worked with other AU entities to inform high-level thinking about gender. However, its meaningful impact remains limited due to a lack of resources and insufficient coordination between citizens in conflict-affected countries, key decision-makers and armed actors.

Gender advisors and gender focal points. UN peacekeeping missions have relied on gender advisors (GAs), trained professionals who integrate gender perspectives into policies. However, only 44 GAs were deployed across all missions in 2022. Considering that the total personnel of all UN peacekeeping missions that year was 75,000, that makes an average of one GA for every 1,700 peacekeepers. Additionally, they face resource constraints, role misunderstandings, and cultural and contextual barriers. Gender focal points (GFPs) are staff members who, in addition to their other duties, are tasked with assuming the role of gender advocate. In 2022, there were around 500 focal points at 60 UN duty stations. The challenges they face include inadequate budgets and a backlash against women and the WPS agenda. Increasing the recruitment and engagement of men as gender advisors and focal points could be helpful in the future.

The African Union. Gendered perspectives and analyses are still largely absent from briefings to the AU Peace and Security Council, and the merest handful of conflicts have had more than one woman involved in mediation. However, through the Continental Results Framework (2018–2028), African governments have begun to document their progress more systematically, albeit unevenly. The latest available report – from 2020 – covers 13 indicators across the pillars of the WPS agenda. Some African countries reported initiatives: for example, Burkina Faso, Namibia, and Uganda highlighted legislative frameworks addressing gender discrimination and sexual violence; Burundi and Cameroon reported on protection training for police and magistrates; Rwanda, Niger, and Côte d’Ivoire outlined efforts to integrate gender monitoring mechanisms; and Sierra Leone established a ‘women’s situation room’ to support women's engagement and protection. The AU Commission reported it allocated 0.25 per cent of its departmental budget for peace and security to the WPS agenda, while gender parity in senior leadership remained a norm more broadly. Still, the WPS work of the continent was not accompanied with resources for deep-rooted transformation, enforcement of laws, long-term structural solutions, or robust follow-up.

While there is evidence of initiatives taken by African governments to include WPS in national legislation and to provide training or support, beneficiaries number in the thousands – far short of the hundreds of millions who need to be included in peacebuilding work or relief and recovery on a continent where 25–30 of the 54 countries are affected by conflict. Indeed, implementation of the WPS agenda is still mainly top-down, limited to the technocratic work of an international bureaucracy or maintained by a limited circle of activists.

Policy recommendations

• Popularise the agenda. WPS narratives often focus too much on the UN’s framework, missing the everyday issues that promote peace and pre-empt conflict. Spreading the WPS agenda beyond the international and expert level is essential. Proponents should be unafraid to speak from pulpits and community centres, boardrooms and cafés, and to adopt a wider perspective in addressing community safety and security. The inclusion of education, economic opportunities and health improvements at the local level would make the agenda more relevant. Increased support for local women’s organisations is also a priority.
• Tailor messages to specific audiences. To engage more target groups on gender issues, the language and the messages must be adapted to the needs, knowledge level and motivations of different audiences. These vary considerably across socio-economic, political and religious lines, but aligning with them can help drive change. For example, some non-state armed groups have adopted international human rights and policies against sexual violence when those norms were framed in a way that resonated with their operational objectives of winning over civilian support. Tailoring WPS commitments in collaboration with diverse audiences is an underexploited strategy.
• Expand the network of WPS advocates. To increase the appeal of the WPS agenda to different audiences, we need diverse voices. Traditional and faith-based leaders like pastors, imams, rabbis, chiefs and healers are best placed to promote gender equality in areas where they have influence, usually patriarchal settings. Local officials, police and judges are also crucial to embed gender equality measures in local communities. Thus, in addition to international gender focal points or advisors, governments should broaden support to women and men at the local level, across sectors, to implement WPS