Despite over two decades of policy development and commitments to supporting women and girls affected by armed conflict, women’s participation in all levels of decision-making lags due to structural barriers, lack of access to political arenas, and even threats to women who attempt to participate in these processes. Efforts to build and sustain peace continue to neglect the expertise of local-level women peacebuilders, and formal peacemaking efforts continue to resist women’s meaningful participation and women’s rights.

IPI’s women, peace, and security (WPS) program seeks to build connections between the international community in New York and women and gender experts globally. To advance its goals, the WPS program conducts evidence-based research projects and strategic convenings and maintains global, national, and grassroots relationships and partnerships. In addition to its standalone program, IPI’s WPS team supports the mainstreaming of gender and WPS across the organization’s work.

The WPS program at IPI is focused on the future of the WPS agenda. Rather than only reflecting on the past, it looks ahead at opportunities to expand the WPS agenda and to make it more inclusive in order to reach its linked goals of gender equity and peace and security for all. By using an inclusive definition of “gender,” IPI seeks to move beyond using it as a stand-in for “women.” A broad gender analysis—one that acknowledges the spectrum of masculinities and femininities and how these ways of being affect all aspects of peace and security—ensures that IPI is pursuing an innovative, inclusive, and effective WPS research agenda.

IPI’s WPS program focuses on three main streams of work: (1) gender and peace operations; (2) gendered insights into peace and conflict; and (3) strengthening the WPS agenda and women’s leadership within the UN and among UN member states.

Gender and Peace Operations

UN peace operations will not be successful in building sustainable peace if they continue to marginalize women’s contributions and ignore gender dynamics within the UN and in the contexts where the UN operates.

Since 2019, IPI has analyzed and evaluated challenges and successes in increasing women’s substantive participation in peace operations. Calls to increase the number of women in peace operations (whether peacekeeping operations or special political missions) are increasingly intersecting with expectations of what women will “do” in these operations, covering everything from participation in female engagement teams to mediation. These expectations are, in turn, confronting the challenges women face in the security sector. Research on the unintended consequences of various policy and programmatic interventions, on incentives, and, crucially, on what women in uniform want from these initiatives remains nascent. Likewise, research on gendered definitions of security is lacking, and security concerns—both of host communities and uniformed women themselves—are often narrowly defined and not well addressed.

IPI’s project on gender in peace operations seeks to fill that gap. It builds on the organization’s expertise in UN peace operations and rigorous research to analyze and evaluate challenges and successes in increasing women’s substantive participation in peace operations. By working with the UN, governments, and civil society partners, IPI provides concrete policy guidance on what policies and programs are necessary to substantively improve women’s participation in peace operations.

Gendered Insights into Peace and Conflict

IPI will continue to analyze and evaluate the challenges and successes of the women, peace, and security agenda and offer recommendations on the way forward. IPI’s research on WPS not only examines areas that are already part of the WPS agenda and resolutions but also seeks to identify new intersections between gender, peace, and security. This workstream stems from the belief that using a gender analysis will lead to a better understanding and more effective strategies for building peace and addressing insecurity. An essential component of this workstream includes educating and training others in why and how gender analysis is useful.

As part of this research, IPI considers topics such as masculinities, preventing and countering violent extremism, gender-based violence, the climate crisis and the environment, and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR).

Strengthening the WPS Agenda and Women’s Leadership within the UN and Member States

As the WPS agenda approaches its 25th anniversary (marked by the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1325), it faces challenges in terms of implementation, especially in relation to one of its key pillars: promoting women’s leadership. IPI’s WPS program seeks to strengthen the implementation of the WPS agenda broadly as well as through understanding and working to overcome the barriers to women’s leadership. Dedicated, annual events bringing together key stakeholders and policymakers provide much-needed opportunities to talk through creative and practical solutions to the core challenges facing women, peace, and security. To that end, this workstream focuses on three primary areas: (1) connecting protection and participation; (2) strengthening member-state commitments; and (3) engaging feminist leaders.