2020 in Review: WILPF Women, Peace and Security

To reflect on 20 years of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, we published the report UNSCR 1325 at 20 Years: Perspectives from Feminist Peace Activists and Civil Society. This report draws from the perspectives and experiences of women peace activists and other civil society actors across WILPF’s global network. We also published A WILPF Guide to Leveraging the SDGs for Feminist Peace, which draws on our programme’s years of work on the SDGs as part of the prevention pillar of WPS, and a brief on Women, Peace and Security in ceasefires. 

UNSCR 1325 at 20 Years: Perspectives of Feminist Peace Activists

This report is based on a series of global interviews, consultations, and meetings with feminist peace activists — the key actors who advocated for the adoption of UNSCR 1325. It documents their assessment of the past 20 years of implementation, and what more must be done to ensure women’s meaningful participation and prevent violence. The report finds that there are three primary challenges to progress on Women, Peace and Security: militarism and militarization; the patriarchal and political underpinnings of the agenda; and lack of accountability for implementation.

A WILPF Guide to Leveraging the Sustainable Development Goals for Feminist Peace 

This guide provides a framework for working on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from a feminist peace perspective. It is designed to help activists leverage the SDGs for conflict prevention and human security, by working with governments and others in civil society. 

Centering Women, Peace and Security in Ceasefires

This brief contains an urgent reminder that UNSC action in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic must be linked with its existing recognition of the gendered impacts of conflict, the importance and agency of women in promoting peace, and center inclusivity and human security. It highlights case studies from Cameroon, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, and Yemen in the COVID-19 context, drawing from the recommendations of WILPF members and partners on the ground.

As a programme, we continued to work in partnership with feminist allies through coalitions, including the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security and the Women’s Major Group. Together we brought feminist perspectives into the UN Security Council and Sustainable Development fora, and advanced priorities of peace, human rights, and gender justice.

2020 Civil Society Roadmap on Women, Peace and Security

WILPF helped to draft the NGO Working Group on WPS 2020 Roadmap, particularly the sections on prevention, participation, and accountability. This Roadmap provides concrete recommendations for the UNSC, the UN, and other actors to advance the implementation of UNSCR 1325 and subsequent WPS resolutions.

This year we completed the second year of our term as Organising Partner of the Women’s Major Group. The 2020 Women’s Major Group position paper contains the calls of women peacebuilders to address militarism in order to achieve sustainable development and a peaceful future. It calls for all actors to: shift funding from military expenditure to human security; stop the arms trade; prevent violence against human rights defenders and peacebuilders; focus on disarmament; accelerate commitments on WPS; and end conflicts through inclusive peace processes. Additionally, we contributed to the drafting of the two-pager series, “From the Pandemic to 2030: Feminists Want System Change” on feminist priorities in relation to the Global Sustainable Development Report entry points, specifically in the context of COVID-19 response.

Feminist responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

As part of WILPF-wide and coalition efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, we contributed to work on Feminist principles for a global ceasefire and Feminist principles for a post COVID-19 settlement. This was done in partnership with the FIRE Consortium, of which WILPF is a part. As an organization, WILPF also ran a series of articles on COVID-19 and the post-pandemic world we want to create.

The future of advocacy in a digital world
We co-authored a Women’s Major Group brief on the Future of Advocacy in light of COVID-19. The brief aims to support feminist activists in continuing to adapt their advocacy to ever-changing circumstances as well as raise important questions around inclusivity, systemic barriers, and the future of advocacy.