AfP Urges Implementation of the WPS Agenda on the 25th Anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 31, 2025
CONTACT
Nick Zuroski | nick@allianceforpeacebuilding.org
Washington, DC, USA — On the 25th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, the foundation of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda, the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP)—a woman-led network of over 250 organizations working in 181 countries to prevent violent conflict and build sustainable peace—calls on the international community and U.S. Government to increase investment in and strengthen commitment to WPS. Successful implementation of the WPS Agenda is vital to addressing the disproportionate and unique effects of conflict on women and girls and supporting their role in preventing, mitigating, and resolving it. At a time of record-breaking violent conflict, the world can no longer afford to marginalize half the population in efforts to build sustainable peace.
The WPS Agenda, which recognizes women as essential agents of change and peace, offers a common sense framework to meet the complex and compounding challenges of this moment. Today, more than 600 million women and girls are impacted by conflict—a 50% increase from a decade ago. The WPS Agenda requires the meaningful inclusion and substantive engagement of women and women-led civil society organizations in peace and political processes, security institutions, and relief and recovery efforts, as well as the protection and support of women peacebuilders and the integration of considerations of women and girls in peace, security, and political agreements. Women’s inclusion has been key to addressing conflict, from Colombia, to Northern Ireland, to Sudan. We know that peace agreements that include women are 20% more likely to last at least two years and 35% more likely to last 15 years.
In 2017, the U.S. recognized the value of the WPS Agenda by enacting the landmark WPS Act, passed by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by President Trump. The WPS Act was the first and only legislation in the world that seeks to operationalize the principles of UNSCR 1325 in diplomatic, defense, and development policies and programs. The law required two whole-of-government national strategies on WPS, department/agency-specific implementation plans, and the training of U.S. Government personnel, and called for the integration of WPS considerations in U.S. interventions and initiatives in conflict-affected contexts.
Unfortunately, both the international WPS Agenda and the U.S. WPS Act have fallen short of achieving their practical yet ambitious objectives. While their existence alone should be celebrated, the WPS Agenda and Act have been consistently and systematically underfunded, deprioritized, and excluded from the world’s peace and security architecture. At a time of increasing violent conflict, mass atrocities, militarism, authoritarianism, shrinking civic space, and declining multilateral legitimacy and effectiveness, new and emerging risks to advancing WPS have emerged.
Over the last few months, cuts to U.S. foreign assistance have led to the widespread terminations of programs that advanced the security of women and girls in conflict-affected and fragile states—from Sudan, to Ukraine, to Myanmar, to Palestine, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). These programs prepared diverse women to participate in peace processes; provided life-saving assistance for women and girls in conflict zones; helped prevent and address conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence; and resourced safehouses that sheltered women dissidents—all of which promoted broader stability. The reorganization of the State Department, dismantling of USAID, and reductions-in-force at the Department of Homeland Security is undermining the capacity central to the successful implementation of the Act and promotion of both international and U.S. security. In addition to the U.S., other major bilateral and multilateral donors have slashed funding for organizations that provide life-saving and life-changing assistance to women and girls, leaving women-led civil society—the lifeblood of the WPS Agenda—in an existential crisis.
At the recent Open Debate on Women, Peace, and Security, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated, “Gains are fragile and—very worryingly—going in reverse. Around the globe, we see troubling trends in military spending, more armed conflicts, and more shocking brutality against women and girls.” Amidst these setbacks, peacebuilders must ask our global political leaders, in the words of the International Civil Society Action Network’s community of women peacebuilders, “What are you waiting for?” Now, the world must come together to invest in strategies that protect, sustain, strengthen WPS.
To truly honor the 25th anniversary of the WPS Agenda, it is critical that the international community urgently mobilize to meet the moment. Donors must provide robust resources to advance WPS, including flexible funding for policies, programs, personnel, supplies, resources, training, and other measures that encourage women’s participation and protection in peacebuilding, security, governance, transition, relief, and recovery processes. Additionally, the international community must de-silo WPS so it is comprehensively mainstreamed into the broader global peace and security architecture and funding mechanisms. Implementation of the WPS Agenda must move beyond tick-the-box exercises, and instead be meaningfully and practically integrated into laws, policies, programs, and practices to prevent and resolve violence and promote peace and security. Political leaders must also recognize the success of WPS as not just a moral imperative, but as a strategic and common-sense investment that supports peace, security, stability, and prosperity for everyone.
Below please find a collection of quotes from AfP members on what the WPS Agenda means to them and why its urgent implementation is more important than ever:
“Despite progress, women’s inclusion in peace processes remains the exception, not the norm. Implementation has often lagged behind rhetoric, and the Agenda itself risks being sidelined in transactional geopolitics. An Agenda rooted in the prevention of war and humanizing security is at odds with the current trends towards rising violence and the securitizing humanity.”
“The 25th anniversary of UNSCR 1325 comes at a critical moment: democratic spaces are shrinking, new security threats are emerging, and civil society is facing unprecedented challenges. The framework set out by the WPS Agenda provides the necessary antidote to such intensifying threats to international peace and gender equality, ensuring not only women’s meaningful participation in mediation efforts and peacebuilding, but also their equal leadership in addressing today’s most pressing security challenges.”
“On the 25th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), I want to emphasize a crucial point from my experiences in the DRC: women are not just victims of conflict—they are powerful agents of peace. And what does peace truly mean? It begins in homes and communities where I see women in our programs from diverse, sometimes historically divided ethnic backgrounds, coming together to build trust, share resources, and celebrate each other’s successes. These grassroots efforts are peacebuilding in action.”
“We are optimistic. As more countries recognize the importance of women’s rights and leadership to global peace and security, we see a growing interest in developing WPS National Action Plans. Parliamentarians are realizing how this helps their countries prosper and be more secure. Women make the difference, and Women, Peace, and Security shows us that!”
“Women are key players in achieving justice and security in Syria and the region. We are committed to peace and democracy. We build bridges, mediate conflicts, design effective programs, and draft inclusive policy.”
“As we mark the anniversary of UNSCR 1325, it is important to remember the spirit of what we set out to achieve 25 years ago. WPS, to us, means backing the women already doing the work and leading change on the frontlines. In Southeast Asia, The Asia Foundation supports women-led civil society organizations facing urgent human security challenges, such as armed conflict, trafficking, digital security risks, and natural disasters. Advancing the WPS Agenda means staying adaptive and supporting locally grounded approaches that build on existing peaceful efforts, rather than imposing new structures from the outside. Now more than ever, supporting the WPS Agenda will be critical to protect hard-won gains and empower the women leading peace and security efforts across the region.”
“WPS changed the policy and political landscape by acknowledging women’s leadership roles in peace and security, and most importantly, feminist concerns with the prevention of war. Yet, when it comes to getting the word out about women’s experiences of war and violent conflicts, the mainstream media consistently ignores them. The UN Secretary General’s report on Women, Peace, and Security (2024) stated that only 5 percent of the media covered women’s experiences of war; and only 0.4 percent of media reported on women’s leadership in contexts of armed conflict. We still have a long way to go in making visible the diversity of women’s experiences, not only as peace activists, survivors of CRSV, and as peacekeepers, but also as political agents/leaders, former/combatants, and civil society organizers. For WPS to continue to have relevance, it must include the multiplicity of women’s perspectives, particularly centering those of women who have/are living through conflict”
“Peace without women is not a promise but a pause. Without women at the center, the world can only travel backwards.”
“The WPS Agenda is not just a milestone, it’s an ongoing movement. 25 years on, we must go beyond aspirations and take bold intersectional action, where diverse women and marginalized voices shape peace and security priorities from the ground up. This cannot remain a solo journey by women; it must be a collective one, carried by all of us, across all sectors.”
“’Making the invisible visible’ has been one of the unspoken tenets of UNSCR 1325. Women continue to be invisible in war and in peace. A global policy launched in 2000 to change this problem of invisibility was revolutionary. It spoke out loud that women significantly matter to all policies related to peace and security. We mark the 25th Anniversary of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda because being visible makes change happen.”
“As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of UNSCR 1325, we recognize there have been successes, but there is also so much more to do. It is time to recommit and use our collective agency to call for full implementation of the WPS Agenda so we have the possibility of building a secure and peaceful world at a time of increasing and record-breaking violent conflict. To achieve this goal, join us to ensure WPS is woven into everything we do, so that on the 50th anniversary of 1325, we can celebrate the successful implementation of this Agenda resulting in a more peaceful world.”
“25 years on, it is time to recognize the WPS Agenda is not a women’s agenda or a mere box-ticking exercise—it is a peace and security agenda. Without women’s inclusion in decision-making and consultation of half of the world’s population, there can be no peace or security. The international community and governments must urgently de-silo the WPS Agenda and integrate its principles into all efforts to prevent, mitigate, and resolve conflicts and crises. Women are the necessary agents of change and peace at this moment of record-breaking violence and emerging risks to human security.”
The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), named the “number one influencer and change agent” among peacebuilding institutions worldwide, is an award-winning nonprofit and nonpartisan network of 250+ organizations working in 181 countries to prevent and reduce violent conflict and build sustainable peace. AfP cultivates a network to strengthen and advance the peacebuilding field, enabling peacebuilding organizations to achieve greater impact—tackling issues too large for any one organization to address alone.