Advancing the women, peace and security agenda in the Pacific

Oct 31, 2022 | Heather Wrathall and Melissa C. Tyler
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On this day 22 years ago, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1325 in recognition of the fact that women experience and are affected by conflict in different ways to men. Since then, a further nine resolutions relating to women, peace and security (WPS) have been adopted to promote gender equality and strengthen women’s participation, protection and rights in conflict situations and peacekeeping operations and to acknowledge the changing global context of peace and security. Together these 10 resolutions are known as the WPS agenda.

The WPS agenda goes beyond recognised situations of armed conflict. Its fundamental purpose is to ‘prevent insecurity and violence by harnessing the potentials of both women and men, and addressing structural gender inequality and discriminatory gender norms that are barriers to sustainable peace’. Increasingly, natural disasters, poverty, climate change, health epidemics and gender inequality are being viewed as drivers of insecurity and barriers to peacebuilding.