Women, Peace and Security
Expected Council Action
On 3 December, the Security Council will hold an open briefing titled “Investing in the Transformative Power of Intergenerational Leadership on Women, Peace and Security” (WPS). This is one of the signature events of the US’ December presidency. Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo and one or more civil society representatives are the anticipated briefers. No outcome is expected.
The briefing apparently intends to emphasise the importance of dialogue and partnerships across generations of women peacebuilders in advancing the WPS agenda. It seems that the US intends to highlight the perspectives, contributions, and challenges faced by diverse women peacebuilders from different generations, including the frequent exclusion of youth voices from peace processes, and identify strategies to strengthen partnerships and dialogue between young and senior women peacebuilders. It appears that the briefing will explore ways in which the Security Council can advance these issues and strategies for states, the UN, and other international organisations to better recognise the contributions, local solutions, and priorities of women peacebuilders from across generations.
Council members that have signed on to the Shared Commitments on WPS—Ecuador, France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland, the UK, and the US—are expected to deliver a joint statement ahead of the meeting.
Background and Recent Developments
A recent University of San Diego study on intergenerational peacebuilding among women notes that crises involving inequality, violence, health, environmental challenges, and food and water insecurity affect people across generations, necessitating the involvement and leadership of people of all generations to address them and build lasting peace. The report stresses the importance of better recognising, supporting and encouraging the efforts and potential of women’s intergenerational peacebuilding at both national and international levels. Among other findings, the report concludes that working across generations improves effectiveness and reach, and stresses the importance of meaningful participation, recognition of legitimacy, as well as sufficient funding for intergenerational work. The report puts forward several recommendations for international organisations and funders, including incorporating an intergenerational lens into programming and events, integrating age into existing institutional frameworks on inclusion, and ensuring that women of all ages and experience levels can meaningfully participate and are not tokenised.
In May, the Security Council held a debate titled “Maintenance of international peace and security: the role of women and young people”. The Council received briefings from DiCarlo, UN Women Executive Director Sima Sami Bahous, Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs Julio Felipe Paullier Olivera, and AU Youth Ambassador for Peace for West Africa Simone Mbode Diouf. In her briefing, Bahous said that intergenerational dialogues in conflict-affected countries “can have a powerful impact in communities searching for a way out of violence and division” and stressed the importance of ensuring representation of women and young women across decision-making bodies. She called for dismantling “power structures and harmful norms that hinder the full and meaningful participation of young women and girls and that diminish their voices and their crucial contributions as leaders in their own right”. Diouf stressed the importance of empowering young women and recognising their potential as political actors. Among other recommendations, she called for encouraging collaboration and dialogue between young women and other stakeholders to bridge generational and gender gaps.
At the April ministerial-level debate on “The role of young persons in addressing security challenges in the Mediterranean”, Sarra Messaoudi—Regional Lead of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Coalition on YPS—highlighted several challenges faced by young people such as “systematic barriers” to meaningful participation in peace, political and security processes. Noting the lack of implementation of Security Council resolution 2728 on the war in Gaza, she said that young people are questioning the international system, international law, and the veto power, as well as “the imposition of peace agreements that we didn’t participate in shaping and that do not meet our expectations”.
Women civil society representatives briefing the Security Council have highlighted patterns of exclusion and violence that cut across generations of women in several contexts on the Council’s agenda. In her briefing to the Security Council at the WPS open debate in October 2023, Hala Al-Karib—the Regional Director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, a network of around 100 women’s organisations from across the region—described the ongoing war in Sudan as the “result of decades of violence against civilians, violence that has impacted nearly every aspect of women’s lives”. She noted that the military takeover during the transitional period which followed the ouster of former President Omar al-Bashir “illustrates how only paying lip service to the WPS agenda, without insisting on women’s rights and women’s meaningful participation in peace and political processes, is not enough to overcome the repressive patriarchal status quo”.
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.
The Council’s failure to take urgent action to expedite an end to the wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, among other situations, has had devastating consequences for women in these regions, with Council members, including the US and Russia, using the veto, or threat thereof, to stop action to facilitate a resolution of these crises. (For options on these situations, see the briefs on “The Middle East, including the Palestinian question” (MEPQ), Ukraine, and Sudan in our November Monthly Forecast.) When the General Assembly convenes in response to a veto in the Council, members could highlight the impact of the use of the veto on women in that situation.
Regarding the 3 December open briefing, Council members could in their statements request the UN to provide more information in regular briefings and reports on how UN peace operations support dialogue and partnerships across generations of women peacebuilders in the context of their work to deliver on the WPS mandate. As the briefing’s organiser, the US could prepare a chair’s summary of the meeting to capture salient themes of the discussion to be circulated in a Council letter.
Reprisals continue to be an issue of concern. The 2024 Secretary-General’s annual report on WPS says that five women civil society representatives reported reprisals in connection with their briefings to the Council in 2023. More recently, during the 21 November Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Russia and Syria sharply criticised the participation of Sawsan Abou Zainedin, the Chief Executive Officer of the Syrian civil society network Madaniya. In a 21 November letter to the UK, the Council’s president for that month, Russia expressed “deep disappointment” with the presidency’s choice to invite Zainedin and further criticised her intervention (S/2024/848). Following a briefing by the Executive Director of the Israeli NGO B’Tselem, Yuli Novak, at the 4 September meeting on the MEPQ, 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. As continuing reprisals against briefers show, 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
While notable implementation gaps persist, most Council members are supportive of the WPS agenda. However, dynamics remain difficult, with Russia and China often challenging the inclusion of language on WPS in Security Council products.
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 on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Russia has regularly argued that the Security Council should focus on situations that pose a direct threat to international peace and security and that its engagement on WPS should be limited to the consideration of “women’s issues in a context of the maintenance of peace and security and in connection to situations that are on the Council’s agenda”. Russia has also expressed scepticism regarding the youth, peace and security agenda, including at the May debate, arguing that “attributes such as age and gender cannot be the determining—and much less the only—criteria for involving certain individuals in decision-making processes, especially on such sensitive issues as the maintenance of peace and security”. Russia might express similar views at the December WPS briefing.
The UK is the penholder on WPS, and the US is the penholder on conflict-related sexual violence. Sierra Leone and Switzerland are the co-chairs of the Informal Experts Group on WPS. Malta is the coordinator of the Shared Commitments initiative.
RELEVANT
| Security Council Resolutions | |
| 29 October 2019S/RES/2493 | This resolution reiterated the need for the full implementation of the WPS agenda. |
| 31 October 2000S/RES/1325 | This was the first Security Council resolution on WPS. 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. |
| Secretary-General’s Report | |
| 24 September 2024S/2024/671 | This was the Secretary-General’s annual report on WPS. |
