The UN Security Council met in New York for its annual open debate on women, peace and security, in line with a 25-year-old resolution. The Secretary-General’s most recent report on the issue shows that in 2024, women made up only seven percent of negotiators on average worldwide, and nearly nine out of 10 negotiation tracks included no women negotiators at all.
What happened: More than two decades after the adoption of landmark resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security, UN officials, Member States and civil society representatives alike warned the Security Council that women remain sidelined from peace processes despite decades of evidence that their participation makes peace more durable.
In a day-long debate that heard from over 70 speakers, UN-Women chief Sima Bahous said women’s inclusion reduces violence and strengthens peace agreements, but noted they remain excluded from negotiations across conflicts.
Why it matters: Speakers warned that as global conflicts multiply, peace processes dominated by political and military elites risk producing fragile settlements, arguing “peace built without women is only a pause in violence”.
Bottom line: Delegates agreed that meaningful participation, funding and political backing for women are essential if peace agreements are to endure...
Summary of the live meeting coverage
Women's role in peace processes more urgent than ever
As conflicts multiply and women remain largely absent from peace negotiations, senior United Nations officials, civil society and Member States today urged the Security Council to move beyond rhetoric and make women’s participation in peace processes funded and non-negotiable, warning that peace built without women is “only a pause in violence”.
“Gender equality and women’s empowerment is among the most powerful approaches to achieving peace,” said Sima Bahous, Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), as she opened day-long debate on the topic. “When women are safe, nations are more peaceful,” she added.
Move from Promises to Implementation
Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Peace Laureate and Founder and President of the Gbowee Peace Foundation-Africa, drew on Liberia’s national experience to urge the Council to move from promises to implementation. She recalled working in Liberia in 1994 with women refugees from Sierra Leone who gathered every day to plan peace and their eventual return home.
“They were not preparing for the refugee life that they lived, they were preparing for their return to Sierra Leone and planning the ways they would transform their society,” she said. She remembered wondering how women who had suffered rape, abuse and displacement could still carry such hope, before they told her: “The philosophy of peace that we need will only come if we women band together and work for peace in our community”.
Six years later, the Council adopted resolution 1325 (2000), but she said the world has still failed to fully realize its promise. Peace processes remain dominated by men with political power or guns, despite evidence that women’s meaningful participation produces more durable agreements, faster recovery and more resilient societies. Liberia, she said, proves the point: 23 years after its peace agreement, “we have not gone back to war”.
She called on the Council to engage local women from the start, fund them properly, ensure their meaningful participation at peace tables and equip young women and girls with education, leadership opportunities and confidence. “You can’t make war with millions and make peace with peanuts,” she said, warning that national action plans without money and political will remain “a toothless bulldog”.
Council Retreating from Women, Peace and Security Agenda
Kaavya Asoka, Executive Director of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security, warned that the Council itself is retreating from the women, peace and security agenda at a dangerous moment. She noted that in 2025, only 46 per cent of Council decisions referred to women, peace and security, the lowest level since 2009, while established norms on gender equality, prevention of gender-based violence, women’s participation and sexual and reproductive rights have been contested, rolled back or removed from Council outcomes.
“Every day, we see international law increasingly undermined in favour of narrow interests,” she said, warning that “the cost of dismantling the norms we have collectively built will be far greater”. She urged the Council to create the conditions necessary for women’s meaningful participation, noting that women cannot participate in public or political life if the conditions for inclusion do not exist. “Empty condemnation of attacks against civilians, while continuing to arm those responsible for violence against them, is unacceptable,” she stated, calling on Member States to commit to halting arms transfers where there is a substantial risk that such weapons may be used to commit serious violations, including gender-based violence.
She called for diverse women — including human rights defenders, peacebuilders and feminist movements — to participate directly at all levels of decision-making, including formal peace processes, with a target of 50 per cent representation. No Member State or UN entity, she said, should endorse, facilitate or participate in peace processes where women are excluded.
Women Shape Recovery after War: National Examples
In the ensuing debate, speakers shared national examples of how women have shaped recovery after war. Minh Vu Nguyen, Viet Nam’s Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, stressed that focusing only on women’s vulnerability in conflict tells “only half the story”, pointing instead to women’s courage, resilience and leadership in peacebuilding and national recovery. Drawing on its own experience after decades of war, he said the country’s rebuilding “could not have been possible without the contributions of millions of Vietnamese women”.
The representative of Mozambique also drew on its own post-conflict experience, saying its UN-supported disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process “taught us something specific”. Women ex-combatants and women in affected communities require targeted socioeconomic support, recognition and meaningful participation in local reconciliation processes. Ensuring that disarmament, demobilization and reintegration is gender-responsive “is not a secondary concern”, he stressed. “It is integral to whether peace holds.”
In the same vein, Liberia’s delegate offered his nation’s own history as evidence that women do not merely wait to be included in peace efforts; they create space for peace when institutions fail. He recalled women crossing battle lines, standing between warring factions and helping silence the guns. A peace built without women is only “a pause in violence”, while a peace built with women becomes a foundation for justice, reconciliation and lasting security, she stressed...
