Dr. Renata Dwan is a policy expert and former UN official who has worked on peace and conflict issues in some of the world’s most complex crises. She currently works as a Senior Consulting Fellow of Chatham House and is also a Senior Advisor to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, Switzerland. 

Our Advocacy Policy Advisor, Hana Smith, reflects on Renata’s thought-provoking keynote, which she delivered on Saturday 29 July 2023. 

Before you go any further, take a moment to stop and think: Where are you currently? At home? In a conference room? In the office? Do you feel safe in the room you are in? Now, imagine stepping outside of that room. Do you feel safe in today’s world in general? How we feel about ourselves as women is intricately linked to our personal safety and security. If pushed, we sometimes think about women and peace together as one. Seldom, however, do we think about women and security in the same space. 

Until the 1990s we largely thought about women in conflict as victims. We had very little understanding of what gender-based violence (GBV) was. Nearly 30 years later, we still do not have a full picture because we fail to capture the human aspect of people in our statistics and data. When we talk about violence inflicted on women, we must not forget about the secondary receivers of this violence, including children, adolescents, and often the community at large. 

It is a common misconception that the lives of people in conflict zones are so drastically different to the lives of those living in so-called ‘peace’. However, life in a conflict zone continues with an amount of ordinariness – and this is “a consequence of the ordinariness of the extraordinariness of women”. 

Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) first made it on to the UN Security Council’s agenda in 2000, with the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000). 

The WPS Agenda was a “revolution of a Resolution”, and has been fundamental for two reasons: 

1. The people who made it on the to the UN Security Council were ordinary women’s groups; and
2. It puts women at the centre of conflict. 

The WPS Agenda is founded on four main pillars:
• Participation – women are participants;
• Conflict Prevention – women are part of efforts to prevent violence;
• Protection – women support the restoration of peace; and
• Relief and Recovery – women help to keep peace in society every day 

The WPS Agenda says that my security is a rightful topic of concern, but it is a matter of global concern; and international security is your concern and your responsibility to make the world a safer, more secure place. The WPS Agenda has helped to bring peace agreements in South Sudan and in 2008, conflict-related sexual violence became an international war crime. This helped to drive the fight for justice and impunity. 

But now, 20 years on, the WPS Agenda has hit a moment of “paralysis”. We have been witness to the erosion of women in peace agreements, and the world has seen more military coups since 1991. We see the UN Security Council unable to come to consensus. There has been a huge increase of violence against women, not only in conflict zones. 

Why? 

Many Governments believe that the WPS Agenda has been fulfilled – that there is no more work to be done other than its implementation. Because of this, the way in which security is evolving has halted. This includes the lack of women at the discussion tables. The severe pushback on women’s rights in many countries includes the political oppression of female activists. We must talk about this issue as a societal issue of women’s security. Did you know that 58% of female parliamentarians in Europe report online violence targeted towards them? 

What does this mean for women? 

We must “challenge the future”: the WPS Agenda must form a meaningful part of our future for the security of all women and girls. In 2022 alone, we saw a 28-year high in the number of conflict-related deaths, a 12% rise in violence targeting civilians, and a global high in military expenditure. 

What can you do? 

Every country is required to have a National Action Plan to detail what it is doing on WPS, which you can find here. Research your Government’s WPS promises to ensure they are not only empty promises but delivered in full. 

• Learn about what your country has committed to – how much does it talk about WPS at home? How much does it talk about WPS in conflict zones around the world?
• To what extent is your Government focused on WPS?
• Learn how much of this budget is part of your Government’s development funding? 

Another way that you can take action is to learn about ‘forgotten conflicts’ (a conflict that lacks media and policy attention). These include, but are not limited to Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Myanmar, Syria, and Yemen.
• Lobby your respective Governments to ensure that these conflicts are not forgotten. They must be part of the conversation and funding. 

We must remember that the WPS Agenda is not just an agenda for conflict – it is an agenda for every society. After all, “security means freedom from fear.” 

We must think about new security risks that women face around the world. One of the biggest revolutions we face is the speed and scale at which new technologies are emerging. 

However:
• Women are 8% less likely to own a mobile phone
• 85% of women online witness or experience harassment and other forms of violence
• 73% of women journalists face online violence 

If we want technology not to be biased, and to be safe, women must be part of the discussion. 

You can:
• Think about how you can mobilise coalitions for afforable access to technology;
• Support digital literacy programmes and help women develop the skills they need to use technology safely – including how to turn off offensive images, and how to report them;
• Advocate for legislation to protect women and girls online; and
• Think about how you can accelerate women’s leadership. Women in political leadership positions continues to lag. But as research shows, the more gender equal a society, the more we begin to spend on security, and the less we begin to spend on defence. 

The UN Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace highlights that incrementalism for women has not worked – and that for us to bring about true peace, we must tackle the structures that continue to discriminate against women. 

It is our responsibility to call out socially unacceptable behaviour, including among our own social groups. 

Renata calls on us to:
• Press for gender quotas and incentives;
• Lobby for legislation to end impunity; and
• Invest in female mentoring 

She closed by reminding us that the “WPS Agenda is not for the good times, it is not for the 2000s, it is for today – and it has never been more relevant”. 

The WPS Agenda is an agenda that refuses to make a distinction between global and local security; between ‘we’ and ‘us’. It is an agenda of solidarity – we can only be safe when we consider everyone’s needs. 

As Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “the future of the world is in the making”. And you can do that. Let’s make women peace and security.