Women, Peace and Security
Expected Council Action
In October, the Security Council will hold its annual open debate on women, peace and security (WPS), which will be titled: “Women Building Peace in a Changing Environment”. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed, UN Women Executive Director Sima Sami Bahous, and one or more civil society representatives are the anticipated briefers. The open debate will be chaired by the President of the Swiss Confederation, Viola Amherd, and is one of the signature events of Switzerland’s presidency.
It appears that Switzerland intends to focus the open debate on women’s participation in efforts to build and sustain peace—including as mediators and negotiators, and, more broadly, in peace processes—as a key part of the implementation of the WPS agenda.
Key Recent Developments
The Secretary-General’s annual report on WPS—expected ahead of the open debate—will provide an update on the implementation of the agenda over the past year. This year’s report is expected to include a focus on financing for the WPS agenda, which is one of the “five goals for the decade” set out in the Secretary-General’s 2020 WPS annual report. In this context, it may document notable shortcomings in the provision of adequate and reliable funding for the implementation of the agenda.
The report is also likely to highlight the mounting pushback against women’s rights and gender equality in many parts of the world, and the privileging of military action and military spending over inclusive political processes to address conflict. Feminist and women’s rights organisations have highlighted similar concerns, with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom criticising Council members who express rhetorical support for the WPS agenda, human rights and the rule of law while “simultaneously contributing to violence and insecurity around the globe”, in its analysis of the 2023 WPS open debate.
Similarly, the 2024 NGO Working Group on WPS’ open letter to UN permanent representatives in advance of this year’s open debate warns that against a backdrop of record levels of armed conflict and assaults on international human rights and humanitarian law “[t]he WPS agenda’s vision of peace and equality has never been so important—or so under threat”. The letter urges the Security Council to undertake a series of actions, including committing to reform itself in order to deliver on the UN Charter’s promise of peace, and stopping arms transfers in several circumstances, including when weapons may be used to commit or facilitate serious acts of gender-based violence, or when member states “have knowledge or should have known” that the arms may be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.
Council members retained WPS-related language in several resolutions and were at times able to strengthen it. For instance, resolution 2729, which in April renewed the mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), contained a new reference calling upon parties to recognise the need to protect women human rights defenders from threats and reprisals. In June, the Council adopted resolution 2736 which, for the first time since the outbreak of the war in Sudan in April 2023, encouraged engagement by UN and regional actors to advance peace and an inclusive Sudanese-led political process with the “full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women”.
At other times, Council members struggled to include effective WPS language in Council outcomes. For instance, during the negotiations on resolution 2748, which renewed the mandate of the AU Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) until 31 December, a proposal supported by several members to include a reference to women’s participation and the need for a gender-responsive transition process in ATMIS’ drawdown was opposed by China and Russia and not included in the final version of the resolution. Similarly, during the negotiations on resolution 2746, which authorised the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) to provide operational and logistical support to the Southern African Development Community Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC), draft language was deleted at Russia’s request that would have underlined the need to take into account a gender perspective in the implementation of all aspects of SAMIDRC’s strategic concept of operations, “including by ensuring that gender analysis and women’s participation are integrated into assessments, planning and operations”. Instead, language was added indicating that MONUSCO’s support to SAMIDRC in terms of technical advice and protection of civilians should include the protection of women and girls and the prevention of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV).
Although resolution 2720 of December 2023 on the war in Gaza reaffirms the Council’s concern at the “disproportionate effect that the conflict is having on the lives and well-being of children, women, and other civilians in vulnerable situations”, the two following resolutions on the war (resolutions 2728 and 2735 of 2024) did not include any gender-related language except for a reference in resolution 2735 to “the release of hostages including women”. A further example is resolution 2732, which renewed the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) for a final 19-month period until 31 December 2025. The resolution contained significantly less WPS language than the previous UNAMI mandate renewal in 2023 (resolution 2682), and included only some of the language on WPS proposed during the negotiations.
In recent months, women civil society representatives have briefed Council members on various situations on the Council’s agenda, including Afghanistan, Yemen, and Sudan.
Since January, the Informal Experts Group (IEG) on WPS has met six times, with recent meetings focusing on Somalia, Libya, and Myanmar.
Council members Ecuador, France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland, the UK, and the US have given continuity to the Shared Commitments on WPS initiative, which was started in 2021 by Ireland, Kenya, and Mexico. It seems that these members held regular strategy meetings to coordinate their positions on key WPS issues. They have also held regular WPS-focused press stakeouts this year, most recently on Afghanistan and Libya. Some of these members have hosted informal briefings with women civil society representatives to draw members’ attention to key WPS issues.
Engagement on some commitments remained uneven, however. It appears that commitment holders have yet to develop coordinated strategies to implement their pledge to draw attention to, and follow up on, “the recommendations and priority issues raised by civil society briefers in Council meetings”.
Of the members that have signed on to the Shared Commitments initiative, Malta, the ROK, Sierra Leone, and Slovenia encouraged Council members to focus on WPS issues in a mandated country-specific meeting during their presidencies in 2024; that is, the Great Lakes in March, Sudan in June, Libya in August, and Afghanistan in September, respectively. August’s briefing on peace operation drawdowns and WPS, organised by Sierra Leone, marked the first time that a Security Council meeting focused specifically on challenges of accelerated drawdowns for the WPS agenda. In April, Malta focused the annual open debate on CRSV on demilitarisation and gender-responsive arms control, the first time that this annual open debate addressed this issue.
In July, Switzerland convened a two-day retreat with representatives of regional and Swiss women mediator networks in preparation for the annual open debate. According to a report summarising the key points raised during the retreat, participants stressed, among other issues, the need for gender-responsive conflict analysis, greater awareness of the risks and potential of digital technologies for peacemaking, and political and financial support for women-led peacebuilding and alliance-building. Participants also stressed the importance of establishing mechanisms linking processes along different tracks in order to counter challenges such as the fragmentation of the mediation space, the persistent hierarchy between different tracks, and the continued marginalisation of women at the track 1 level (that is, formal talks between the key political-military elites at the heart of conflicts).
That peace tables are based on “an increasingly narrow, issues-based, and piece-meal approach negotiated between ‘a few men’, and often focused exclusively on short-term fixes to ceasefire and security arrangements or humanitarian access” was identified as a further challenge and as a factor highlighting the need for “political processes designed for inclusivity, based on international norms and principles, and aspiring to achieve transformative peace”.
Key Issues and Options
The pivotal issue for the Security Council remains the full implementation of the WPS agenda and its impact on the ground.
A key issue for Council members supportive of the agenda is to preserve and strengthen WPS language in thematic and country-specific outcomes and to follow up on the implementation of these decisions. These members could continue to coordinate ahead of key Council negotiations and meetings and use the information from IEG meetings to address specific issues.
Council members could also ask UN briefers to provide substantive updates to the Council on specific WPS issues, such as women’s participation in peace processes.
A recent Secretary-General’s report on “Cooperation with the United Nations, its representatives and mechanisms in the field of human rights” says that five women civil society representatives reported reprisals in connection with their briefings to the Council in 2023. More recently, following a briefing by the Executive Director of the Israeli NGO B’Tselem, Yuli Novak, at the 4 September meeting on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question” a member of the Israeli parliament wrote to the Israel Police Commissioner demanding the opening of an investigation, claiming that through her briefing Novak had violated the Israeli Penal Law provision on “aiding the enemy during war”, which is punishable by the death penalty or life imprisonment.
In line with resolution 2242 on WPS and the 1 December 2021 Statement of Shared Commitments on WPS, members should continue to invite diverse women civil society representatives to brief the Council regularly and follow up on their information and recommendations. It is essential that members and the UN take all possible measures to keep briefers safe, in consultation with the briefer, including carrying out risk assessments, developing protection plans, and responding to any reprisals.
Council Dynamics
Most Council members are generally supportive of the WPS agenda. However, Russia and China often oppose the inclusion of language on WPS in Security Council products. This dynamic was recently highlighted by the negotiations on a press statement on Afghanistan which was critical of the release of “The Law on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” on 21 August. The statement was blocked by China and Russia, but later issued as a joint statement by 12 Council members.
The prevalent assessment, including among several Council members and civil society actors, is that the dynamics on this file remain difficult and unconducive to the adoption of new WPS thematic outcomes, challenges exacerbated by the Council’s polarisation and ineffectiveness in the context of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
The UK is the penholder on WPS and the US is the penholder on CRSV. Sierra Leone and Switzerland are the co-chairs of the IEG on WPS. Malta is the coordinator of the Shared Commitments initiative.
| Security Council Resolutions | |
| 13 October 2015S/RES/2242 | The resolution expressed the Council’s intention to convene an Informal Experts Group on Women, Peace and Security and to invite women civil society briefers to country-specific and thematic meetings of the Security Council. It also called for greater integration of the agendas on WPS and counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism. |
| 31 October 2000S/RES/1325 | This was the first Security Council resolution on women, peace and security. Reaffirming women’s key role in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, this text calls for the adoption of a gender perspective in peace agreements and for the protection of women and girls from gender-based violence. |
