Women, Peace and Security
Expected Council Action
In June, the Security Council will hold an open debate on women, peace and security (WPS) titled “Peace is decided with women: Emerging from conflict by enhancing their participation”. Building on Colombia’s national experience with conflict resolution, the open debate intends to stress the importance of women’s active participation in peace processes. This is one of the signature events of Colombia’s June presidency and will be held at ministerial level. UN Women Executive Director Sima Sami Bahous and one or more civil society representatives are the anticipated briefers. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Colombia Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio will chair the meeting.
Key Recent Developments
The June open debate comes at a time of heightened concern for the WPS agenda and more broadly for women’s rights, gender equality, and international law, with civil society organisations warning of a growing backlash against women’s autonomy and devastating consequences for women and girls in situations of armed conflict. Women in many situations on the Council’s agenda continue to face heightened levels of violence, displacement, and marginalisation, including in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti, Lebanon, Myanmar, the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen.
The most recent Secretary-General’s annual report on WPS, which was issued in September 2025, stressed that—against a backdrop of rising authoritarianism, the proliferation of conflict, and militarisation—there has been a “stagnation and even regression” across many of the goals of the WPS agenda between 2020 and 2025. It adds that gender equality and women’s rights are “under threat”, and that disputes “over long-established gender-related terminology” reflect a pushback that “undermines legal protections, opening the door to broader rollbacks in the rights and daily lives of women and girls everywhere”. While many of these trends predate the current US administration, recent US policy choices, the limited efforts by other states to mitigate their effects, and recent international funding decisions have precipitated some of these issues.
The negative impact of sharp reductions in donor funding on women and girls in crisis situations and on gender equality issues more broadly remains a source of concern. A UN Women survey focused on civil society organisations working to end violence against women and girls found that funding cuts have led to programme suspension or termination among one-third (34.5 percent) of the responding organisations. A recent report by the Women’s Refugee Commission on the impact of US foreign aid cuts on women and girls in humanitarian crises shows that, in addition to disrupting key programmes and services, cuts are “reshaping humanitarian responses in ways that deepen gender inequality and compound harm for women and girls over time”.
Women remain largely excluded or underrepresented in peace and political processes, including from diplomatic processes that seek to address major crises such as in Sudan, Gaza, and Ukraine. According to the Secretary-General’s report, in 2024, women represented only 7 percent of peace process negotiators on average worldwide, and nearly 9 out of 10 negotiation tracks included no women negotiators at all. More broadly, according to data compiled by the Council on Foreign Relations, as at 19 March, only 26 out of 193 countries were headed by a woman head of state or government, and only 14 countries’ national cabinets were composed of at least 50 percent women.
At the Security Council, language on WPS and gender has been scaled back or removed in several resolutions renewing the mandates of UN peace operations; particularly, but not exclusively, in texts penned by the US. Most references to gender in resolution 2802, which renewed the mandate of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) in November 2025, were substituted with references to women and girls. For instance, language requesting that the mission ensures that risks of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) are included in the mission’s data collection, threat analysis, and early warning systems was revised to refer to “risks of violence against women and girls”. A previously agreed reference to the mission taking “fully into account gender considerations as a crosscutting issue throughout its mandate” was changed to “considerations of all women and girls”.
Similarly, resolution 2815, which in January renewed the mandate of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), substituted a reference to “taking fully into account gender considerations as a crosscutting issue” throughout the mission’s mandate with “women, peace and security considerations”. Language on including a “gender perspective” in a future settlement process was also changed to a “women, peace and security perspective”.
Resolution 2814, which in January renewed the mandate of the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), eliminated substantive language that had been in resolution 2743, the mission’s prior mandate, including many WPS references. For instance, resolution 2814 omitted language recognising the link between gender violence and arms flows. It also removed language that embedded gender equality as a crosscutting issue in the mission’s mandate, linking it to supporting women’s political participation, attention to SGBV, the implementation of Haiti’s National Action Plan on WPS, and the inclusion of women’s civil society organisations in peacebuilding and humanitarian action.
Language on gender considerations as a crosscutting issue, which appeared in previous resolutions renewing the mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), is no longer included in resolution 2820, which most recently extended the mission’s mandate. The resolution also excluded language requesting gender-sensitive risk assessments on the adverse effects of climate change, among other references.
Participation of women civil society briefers in Council meetings has markedly decreased. According to an analysis by the NGO Working Group on WPS, in 2025 the Security Council received briefings by 31 women civil society representatives. This represents a 44 percent decrease compared to 2024 when 55 women civil society representatives briefed the Council and is the lowest since 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis says that the sharp decline in briefings by women civil society representatives in 2025 likely reflects the impact of travel restrictions to the US, concerns regarding the security of some civil society representatives, and difficult Security Council dynamics.
According to the Secretary-General’s annual report on WPS, seven women civil society briefers who briefed the Security Council in 2024 and responded to a UN Women survey reported having been subjected to reprisals.
Adopted in 2013, Security Council resolution 2122 requested regular information and analysis on WPS to be provided to the Council, including that UN senior officials, as part of their regular briefings, deliver updates on issues relevant to the WPS agenda. A review of all briefings delivered by UN officials during open meetings on country-situations in 2025 showed that most briefings did not sufficiently or consistently include WPS analysis, failing to accurately reflect the impact of conflict and crises on diverse women and girls or to provide clear recommendations on how to address these issues. In a joint statement delivered during the 2025 annual working methods open debate, the ten elected members of the Council (E10) encouraged UN briefers to “integrate WPS issues and gender analysis into their briefings to the Council”, among other issues.
Since January, the Informal Experts Group (IEG) on WPS has met four times, focusing on Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Lebanon.
Key Issues and Options
The overarching challenge for the Security Council is the mounting pushback against women’s rights, gender equality, and international law. A key issue remains the full implementation of the WPS agenda and its impact on the ground.
An important issue for Council members supportive of the agenda is to continue to ensure the inclusion of robust WPS language in thematic and country-specific outcomes, as well as follow up on the implementation of these decisions, in line with resolution 2242 of 2015 in which the Council decided to integrate WPS concerns “across all country-specific situations on the Security Council’s agenda”. In this regard, the negotiations on the renewal of the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), following its three-month extension in March, will be closely watched.
To guide their work, Council members can use the recommendations put forward by UN Women as the IEG secretariat, as well as the recommendations presented by women civil society representatives who have briefed the Council. 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.
The Council’s failure to address and facilitate a peaceful resolution to several conflict situations on its agenda has had devastating consequences for women in those contexts, with some Council members being directly involved in these conflicts or supporting the conflict parties.
Council members could lead by example and stop transferring arms when there is a risk that weapons will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and acts of SGBV. The Council could also impose and enforce arms embargoes in these situations. If Council dynamics do not allow collective action on these measures, a group of Council members supportive of international law and the WPS agenda could issue a joint statement announcing their decision to stop arms transfers and specifying that the decision was taken in response to serious violations of IHL and acts of SGBV.
Against the backdrop of the UN80 initiative, a reform agenda aimed at streamlining the UN in response to funding constraints and expected to result in consolidation and austerity measures, Council members could continue to support the deployment of women’s protection advisers and gender advisers in peace operations, as well as in transition processes from peacekeeping operations to special political missions and country teams.
In the context of the Security Council informal dialogues with the candidates for the position of UN Secretary-General, which are expected to begin in June, the members of the Shared Commitments on WPS initiative (Colombia, Denmark, France, Greece, Latvia, Liberia, Panama, and the UK) could coordinate to ensure that all candidates are asked about their position on the future of the WPS agenda.
Council Dynamics
The US regularly seeks the deletion of references to gender in Council products or their substitution with narrower references. It has also challenged references to civil society, women’s participation, women protection advisers, and gender advisers.
This position has converged with Russia’s long-held oppositional stance regarding the inclusion of WPS language in Council outcomes.
Several Shared Commitments members often advocate for the retention of WPS and gender language in Council resolutions and break silence over these issues. On some occasions, they have succeeded in retaining some of these references. For example, in the case of UNMISS, the US, the penholder on South Sudan, reinstated references to women protection advisers; gender advisers; and the full, equal and meaningful participation of women after having deleted them and facing the possibility that these and several other contentious changes could prompt abstentions and prevent the resolution from securing the requisite number of votes for adoption.
The US, which had signed on to the Shared Commitments in 2023, withdrew from the initiative in December 2025.
The UK is the penholder on WPS, and the US is the penholder on conflict-related sexual violence. Colombia and Denmark are the co-chairs of the IEG on WPS. Panama 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. |
| Secretary-General’s Reports | |
| 5 September 2025S/2025/556 | This was the Secretary-General’s annual report on women, peace and security. |
| Security Council Meeting Records | |
| 6 October 2025S/PV.10011 | This was the annual open debate on WPS. |
