By Madame Bineta Diop, Katharine Wright & Colleagues
This piece emerged from a conversation hosted by W3D and WAPPP in April 2026 around Holding the Line on Women, Peace and Security, a report that explored how different actors are responding to growing challenges to the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. It was motivated by the WPS seminar series organized by CID in 2025 and 2026.
Twenty-five years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, WPS has been adopted at the local, national, regional, and international levels. Yet at the very moment the agenda has begun to be embedded across institutions, it is also facing renewed political and ideological pressure. Backlash against gender equality initiatives, funding cuts to development aid, intensifying geopolitical competition, and shrinking space for civil society raise pressing questions about its future.
This piece brings together voices from across regions, generations, and sectors to ask a different question: what can we learn from those who are implementing, experiencing and reimagining WPS in practice?
From the African Union to NATO's eastern flank, from women serving in uniform to the next generation of policymakers, these perspectives offer insights into how the United States, and the wider international community, can sustain and renew WPS at a moment of pushback on women’s rights.
Madame Bineta Diop
Former African Union Special Envoy on Women, Peace and Security; Senior Research Fellow, Harvard Center for International Development, WAPPP, and Carr-Ryan Center, Harvard Kennedy School
Lesson One: Local ownership and regional leadership matter
The African Union has adopted the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda by grounding it in Africa's realities of conflict prevention, community resilience, and accountability. Beyond adopting UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the AU became the first regional organization to appoint a Special Envoy on Women, Peace, and Security, elevating women's leadership in peace processes and supporting National Action Plans across more than two-thirds of AU Member States.
Recognizing that policies alone are insufficient, the AU established the Continental Results Framework, with indicators that enable Member States to report on implementation and strengthen accountability. Equally important has been investing in women-led civil society organizations, whose early warning systems, mediation efforts, and community networks are often the first line of defence against conflict.
While implementation is still a global challenge, many countries and institutions can draw valuable lessons from Africa's emphasis on prevention over militarization, community-led peacebuilding, and the institutionalization of accountability mechanisms that translate global commitments into national action and budgetary priorities.
Katharine Wright
Professor in International Politics and Public Policy, Newcastle University, UK and Fulbright Scholar and Research Fellow, Women and Public Policy Program, Harvard Kennedy School
Lesson Two: We need to reflect inwards, not just outwards
Serving on NATO’s Civil Society Advisory Panel on WPS, to which I was nominated by the UK government, has been an opportunity to learn from colleagues across the Alliance and partner countries - from Ukraine and Georgia to Finland, Estonia, Portugal, and Germany.
One message is clear: WPS is needed now more than ever. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the broader threat it poses to Euro-Atlantic security, has reinforced the importance of understanding how conflict affects different groups and how inclusive approaches strengthen resilience, deterrence, and defense.
Amidst a moment of backlash, a key lesson is to remember that WPS is a tool, to end war, its implementation if not an end in itself. We should also reflect critically on our own role in this moment as academics and civil society. How did an agenda that once enjoyed broad bipartisan support in the US become so politically contested? The answer lies not only in understanding opposition to WPS, but also in examining how its advocates have framed and communicated the agenda over time.
Sorana-Cristina Jude
Lecturer in Defense Studies, King’s College, London
Lesson Three: Security looks different from Central and Eastern Europe
Since February 2022, Central and Eastern European (CEE) states have faced unprecedented security challenges while spearheading support for Ukraine against Russia’s aggression. As interest in the implementation of WPS in CEE grew, local defence practitioners became preoccupied with increasing the number of women in defense leadership positions or within strategic domains (e.g., cyber).
Yet, as Ukraine shows us, the relevance of WPS for resilient defense is much wider. Against democratic backsliding, CEE contends with the manipulation of gendered narratives, including through Russian-backed disinformation campaigns which thrive in divided societies. In Romania, they even led to the cancellation of the 2025 Presidential elections. With authorities slow to react, civil society organizations like Funky Citizens enhanced efforts to fight disinformation by organizing media literacy events in urban and rural areas, including fact-checking marathons or fake-news exhibitions aimed at boosting societal resilience. This brief yet telling example underscores a simple point: for Western polarized societies (like the UK), Romania may offer more useful lessons than the oft-quoted Nordic states, whose comparatively cohesive societies face a very different reality.
Amy Hill
PhD Researcher, Newcastle University, UK and Royal Air Force
Lesson Four: Consider the costs of doing DEI wrong
I come to this discussion as a female PhD Researcher, employed in the Royal Air Force, as a former Regular and now Reserve. WPS calls for greater female military participation across the international community, not just from a moral and equal opportunity standpoint, but for genuine and imperative operational effectiveness. This contribution needs to go beyond an essentialist view of female participation, which assumes that female presence is enough to bring a different perspective.
Despite this, the cost of merely increasing female participation, or in other words, doing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) wrong, is severe. On an international scale, women are being employed in hype visible tokenistic roles, their participation and contributions undermined by quotas. More harmfully, the over-emphasis on diverse numerical representation without addressing deeper power or structural constraints has resulted in increased polarization within organizations, creating tensions and discord amongst groups. As institutions do DEI wrongly, women find themselves in a double bind, as undermined, unable to contribute, and unable to perform.
Genuine inclusion is essential to ensure that women’s voices are heard, and their contributions are fully recognized in shaping global peace and security.
Elana Carpaco
MPP candidate, Harvard Kennedy School
Lesson Five: Listen to the next generation
Students today emphasize the centrality of the WPS framework in the protection of women and girls in warfare from sexual violence and conflict harm. However, broadening the legitimacy and trustworthiness of modern defense and security institutions requires reframing women from ‘victims’ to ‘leaders’ in negotiation, mediation, peacekeeping, reconstruction, and prevention processes. In particular, students contest the narrative that casts experienced young women in conflict-affected communities as ‘future leaders’ rather than ‘current actors’.
Students challenge the assumption that overcoming legal barriers to inclusion via empowerment language in formal state commitments is sufficient for meaningful women’s participation. Mitigating institutional, cultural, and informal barriers to women’s retention, promotion, and safety requires improved reporting systems, caregiving support, accountability metrics, and protections from retaliation.
To address the costs of conflict borne by women peacebuilders, students hope to see a shift toward flexible, direct, and long-term funding for grassroots women’s organizations, when possible, in gender provisions of formal peace agreements.
Finally, students advocate for a future-thinking WPS policy agenda that covers emerging threats more explicitly, such as climate security, online threats, disinformation, and technology-enabled gender-based violence, and backlash against women’s rights.
Student Seminars
CID's non-credit Student Seminars meet regularly during the semester to connect students with leading international development practitioners who navigate critical, cross-cutting topics within their fields.
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