On October 31, the anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 marked twenty-four years since its entrance into the international order. UNSCR 1325 was commemorated as the long-sought resolution to ensure women’s full participation in global peace and security (broadly defined). Its existence would not have been possible without the efforts of both civil society and the United Nations member states. This resolution[1] focused on addressing the significant gap in women’s participation in all levels of peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and post-conflict reconstruction, including combating gender-based violence. After twenty-four years, UNSCR 1325 has brought forth subsequent resolutions, nine in total, continuing to address sexual-based violence both in the conflict and post-conflict environment and barriers to women’s participation in peace processes from the most localized level to the extent of high-level decision-making processes. Others, such as Security Council Resolution (SCR) 2242[2], sought to highlight women’s role in preventing and countering terrorism, and the most recent, SCR 2467[3] in 2019, challenged member states in their commitment to the previous resolutions. One of the primary ways in which UNSCR 1325 and the subsequent resolutions were to be implemented was through countries adopting National Action Plans focused on the 1325 agenda in the context of their state.
Today, approximately fifty-six percent of the United Nations member states have adopted[4] one or more National Action Plans (NAPs) to further the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. Despite fifty-six percent of member states adopting NAPs, many countries have not consistently or successfully implemented them. National Action Plans require significant funding, governmental capacity, and cooperation, vital for their success and sustainability. Because of the challenges of adopting NAPs, some critical questions have been raised. For example, how can NAPs be implemented during a civil war, a country that recently emerged from violent conflict, or why do many global North countries primarily focus their NAPs on the Global South rather than gaps in their own country? The WPS agenda and National Actions Plans have continuously been scrutinized for not addressing the root causes and drivers of conflict through a gendered lens and instead focusing on the security aspects of WPS rather than peace.
The United Nations’ most recent report on Women, Peace, and Security exhibits some of the capacity and funding realities, including finding that limited funding is one of, if not the primary challenge to the agenda. In 2023, Official Development Assistance (ODA) to gender equality efforts was reduced, and only 23.1% of the funding for Gender and Sexual Violence (G/SBV) efforts was fulfilled. Moreover, with the expansion of conflicts globally, 2024 will soon end with disputes such as Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Yemen, Gaza, and Myanmar, continuing with many concerns regarding women in these spaces. Eight of the thirty-one peace agreements signed last year mentioned women and girls directly or explicitly addressed S/GBV. Despite countries with National Action Plans displaying overall better statistics for women in mediation roles or the peace process generally, in 2023, women made up a mere 23.3 percent of negotiators and mediators and 26.2 percent of signatories to both peace and ceasefire agreements, which displays little to no growth over the last decade.[5] UNSCR 1325 and the WPS agenda in full have continuously warned of declining participation, and the statistics so far this year further support the case.
In 2011, in scrutiny of the securitization of WPS, Cora Weiss, at the time president of The Hague Appeal for Peace, warned the international community during a speech calling for addressing conflict-related sexual violence but not for “making war safe for women,”[6] because in doing so we justify war. The 1325 agenda calls women, to the forefront of the peace agenda and, ultimately, demilitarisation. Following this, Laura Shepherd, a leading academic in the Women, Peace, and Security discourse and author of Narrating the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda and most recently Governing the Feminist Peace in 2016, posed the question: “Are National Action Plans making war safe for women?” as she pointed to the further militarization of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda and concluded in her analysis of six national action plans at the time were doing so. Each included enlarging their already extensive military budgets, increasing military force in conflicts, and placing women in the security sectors at a greater rate. These NAPs, along with many others, reflect the securitized[7] and militarized ways of considering peace and security and women’s engagement in both of them, which falls entirely out of line with the effort toward positive peace, demilitarization, and disarmament.
The 24th anniversary of Resolution 1325 offers an opportunity to look back on the agenda, and the cause for celebration in the efforts of women worldwide since the resolution was first introduced. With this being said, its continued securitization and militarization do not reflect the feminist peace agenda or the need for demilitarization and disarmament around the world. Moreover, it should uphold gender equality and women’s rights norms rather than sequester issues such as addressing GBV in ceasefires, negotiations, or peace agreements. As the continued gaps have been brought forth and questions raised by academics, policymakers, practitioners, and women on the ground, the Institute of World Affairs Women, Peace and Security program will be looking back at the insights, stories from the field, critiques and everything in between this next year. Furthermore, IWA seeks to contribute to this field through Resolution 1325 In Focus Series, where we will continue to reflect and see what the women are saying because women’s agency in international peace and security did not begin with UNSCR 1325; it is only a means to their greater participation and perspective.
Author: Adysen Moylan is a WPS intern and MA student of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University (‘25)
[1] United States Institute of Peace. “What Is UNSCR 1325?” United States Institute of Peace, 23 Feb. 2018, www.usip.org/gender_peacebuilding/about_UNSCR_1325.
[2] “Security Council Unanimously Adopts Resolution 2242 (2015) to Improve Implementation of Landmark Text on Women, Peace, Security Agenda | UN Press.” Press.un.org, press.un.org/en/2015/sc12076.doc.htm.
[3] Security Council. 2019.
[4] Baldwin , Gretchen , and Marta Bertea. “Where next for the Women, Peace and Security Agenda?” SIPRI, Oct. 2024, www.sipri.org/commentary/blog/2024/where-next-women-peace-and-security-agenda. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.
[5]Women and Peace and Security Report of the Secretary-General*. 24 Sept. 2024.
[6] Shepherd, Laura J. “Making War Safe for Women? National Action Plans and the Militarisation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.” International Political Science Review / Revue Internationale de Science Politique, vol. 37, no. 3, 2016, pp. 324–35. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44632284. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.
[7] Shepherd, Laura J. “Making War Safe for Women? National Action Plans and the Militarisation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.” International Political Science Review / Revue Internationale de Science Politique, vol. 37, no. 3, 2016, pp. 324–35. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44632284. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.