The Women, Peace, and Security Agenda at 25

Working with the International Peace Institute (IPI), this Capstone team seeked to investigate the response(s) to the United Nations Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda as it enters its 25th anniversary. The WPS agenda is the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 of the year 2000 which formally established international commitment to women’s rights, and meaningful participation in peace-building.

This report focused on defining and analyzing the backlash to the progress of the WPS agenda and gender inclusion at both the international and national levels. Through document-based research and interviews, this report identified and analyzed the main forms of backlash using the following metrics (which are defined in the ensuing pages): female representation, financing of WPS Agenda-related projects, programming of WPS Agenda-related projects, and language pertaining to/consistent with the WPS Agenda. Specifically, this report applied these metrics to assess: the UN Security Council, Commission on the Status of Women, and UN Women (international level); and the countries of Colombia, Sweden, and the United States of America. Based on this framework, this report then presented recommendations of how to counter this backlash moving forward.