3. September 2025
The Women, Peace and Security Agenda stands as both an achievement and a contested project on the African continent. This article pays tribute to the countless individuals and collectives within the African Union, national institutions, civil society, and local communities that have worked tirelessly to bring WPS to life. By tracing its genesis, taking stock of institutional milestones, and shedding light on the often‑overlooked daily efforts that sustain it, we celebrate the WPS Agenda’s enduring relevance for the African continent – despite a track-record that tells a more complex story.
Twenty-five years after the institutionalization of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, it stands as both an achievement and a contested project on the African continent. A landmark in acknowledging the importance of gender for building sustainable peace, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) and its follow-up resolutions emerged as a global framework for advancing gender equality within peace and security institutions. The WPS Agenda emphasizes the “3Ps” – prevention, protection, and participation of women – while also addressing post-conflict reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, and transitional justice.
Civil society in Africa has been central to bringing the WPS Agenda to life, while the African Union (AU) has championed its translation into continental policies and programs. The agenda’s adoption by intergovernmental and government organizations and its subsequent embedding within liberal institutional frameworks has fueled criticism that it is a state-centric project. In addition, a persistent gap remains between AU policies and the lived realities of women – and people more generally – in Africa.
This disconnect does not make the WPS irrelevant but requires the development of more innovative strategies for reaching those it is meant to serve. The WPS is a shared yet diverse agenda – shaped across scales, localities, and experiences – and sustained daily by activists, community organizers, politicians, and bureaucrats. All these experiences need to be harnessed and amplified.
This article highlights African contributions to the WPS Agenda, briefly sketches its anchoring within the AU, and argues that the WPS Agenda remains a crucial reference point for peacebuilders. It also draws attention to the often unacknowledged daily efforts that give the agenda life and looks ahead to consider the WPS Agenda for the next 25+ years.
Roots and Postcolonial Critique
Civil society and African women’s organizations in particular have been at the forefront of advocating for, implementing, and contributing to the WPS Agenda. However, while these inputs are rooted in the lived experiences and political activism, they have been largely absent from mainstream accounts of the WPS Agenda.
Along with the ideas of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the Kampala Action Plan on Women and Peace (1993) informed the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action’s Chapter 4 E on Women and Armed Conflict. The Kampala Action Plan had already linked peace and security to economic and social justice, noting priorities, such as the need for peace education in schools, as well as the need to reduce defense expenditure. The Windhoek Declaration on Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multi-Dimensional Peace Support Operations (2000), ushered in when Namibia chaired the UNSC, was also an important precursor to the adoption of UNSCR 1325.
Although African perspectives clearly shaped the development of UNSCR 1325, these are not reflected in the dominant perception of the WPS Agenda. Therefore, from a critical feminist perspective, the WPS Agenda “has faced criticism for its colonial and imperialist framing of the Global South”. The substance of the critique is that portraying women from the Global South as “other” in need of protection, saving, and refuge reduces the diversity of roles and experiences of women and undervalues their knowledges, while also making invisible their substantial role in peacebuilding.
According to the scholar and feminist activist Amina Mama, intergovernmental and state institutions, are rooted in colonial state formation and continue to exhibit “the lingering effects of colonial political institutions that relied on a gendered separation of the private and public spheres.” Similarly, scholar Soumita Basu argues that, as a locus of the formal adoption of the WPS Agenda, the UN system has dominated its framing and implementation – all very much shaped by Western liberal ideas. While the WPS Agenda was initially championed and transmitted from civil society to intergovernmental organizations such as the UN and AU, the rich repository of women’s intellectual engagement and activism in relation to peace and security before, during, and after the adoption of UNSCR 1325 has often been neglected in the WPS Agenda.
The African Union: Spearheading the WPS Agenda?
After the adoption of UNSCR 1325 in 2000, the emerging WPS Agenda has seen strong institutional anchoring at various levels within the AU, from the continental level to regional organizations, and to national action plans. The AU has taken the lead in developing policies, concentrating on the prevention of sexual violence against women and children in armed conflict and post-conflict situations. Also, of great significance has been the push for full, equal, and effective participation of women at all stages of peace processes, as well as the setting up of institutional mechanisms to promote the WPS Agenda.
The commitment to integrating the WPS Agenda into its overall policy architecture is reflected in the AU’s adoption of gender equality as a core principle in its Constitutive Act (2000) and the gender parity principle “at all levels and structures of the Union” (2002). This followed the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003), the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (2004), and the AU Gender Policy (2009). More recently, the AU Strategy for Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment (2018-2028) with the Continental Result Framework on the Implementation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Africa (2018-2028) guides the AU’s work on the WPS Agenda.
Within its African Peace and Security Architecture, the AU works through dedicated structures, such as:
The AU’s Gender Observatory, for example, has engaged in critical conversations (e.g. on masculinity) and developing Common African Positions (e.g. for CSW 69) to ensure that African priorities are reflected within the further development of the WPS Agenda.
Over the past 25 years, the AU has emerged as a key institutional home for the WPS Agenda on the continent. Today, Africa counts 35 National Action Plans (NAPs) and 4 Regional Action Plans (RAPs). Although the AU lacks a continental action plan, its institutional and policy anchoring of the WPS Agenda shows how it has positioned itself as a frontrunner on the international stage.
WPS Agenda: Taking Stock
To remain credible, the AU will need to live up to the expectations that its policies have created by ensuring that change reaches African citizens’ lives. Besides providing a roof for rallying joint African positions, the AU has to rely on both Member States and civil society.
Beyond training and capacity building, innovative tools and mechanisms have been set up in Member States across the continent, such as early warning mechanisms, multi-stakeholder governance models (including national WPS focal points and presidential advisors), or free hotlines to report cases of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence.
However, the everyday reality for a majority of African citizens tells a more complex story. While the WPS Agenda has achieved notable normative and institutional progress, its impact on entrenched social practices within the AU and Member States remains limited. Gender equality is still too often treated as a technical question of training and representation, rather than something requiring deeper structural transformation.
A further challenge is that the WPS Agenda remains widely unknown beyond policy circles, while much of the (decreasing) funding remains concentrated at the continental institutional level. A consequence of this is that there is increasing competition for funds between local, transnational, and international organizations and networks. Yet instead of addressing systemic issues, interventions are often ad-hoc and short‑term.
In short, much of the AU’s policy commitments remain stuck at the policy‑formulation and training stage, leaving the transformative potential of the WPS Agenda under‑realized. These are fundamental entry points for the next 25+ years of the WPS Agenda.
WPS Agenda Unseen
Despite a worrying global erosion of support for the WPS Agenda, in particular in peacebuilding, we observe that the WPS Agenda is brought to life on a daily basis. The following examples from The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau – raised during one of the authors’ focus group and interview research in the two countries – attest to this.
Firstly, the WPS Agenda has always been an important point of reference for the daily work of activists and politicians on the continent. As two examples from Guinea-Bissau demonstrate, UNSCR1325 created a momentum for advancing activists’ claims.
One result was the establishment of networks, for instance the Rede das Mulheres Mediadores (ReMuMe), a women mediators’ network, which has helped to mediate community conflicts. In an instance of climate change related conflict in the region of Cacheu, the relocation of a whole community became necessary because homes were already under water due to rising sea levels, leading to community conflict over land. The mediators from ReMuMe came in to address the conflict and together with the community worked towards solutions.
Another example is one of representation and participation: With the election of Suzi Barbosa into parliament, the WPS Agenda became a point of reference for pushing forward the adoption of quotas and gender policies.
Secondly, the WPS Agenda is similarly brought to life by individuals and collectives who might not explicitly link their work to the policy framework itself and whose work remains unacknowledged, as demonstrated by two examples from The Gambia, where women contributed to a peaceful transition of power during a political impasse in early 2017.
Hanna Caroline Faal-Heim, a Gambian female Methodist bishop, was one of the first moral authorities who publicly spoke truth to then-incumbent President Yahya Jammeh. In her capacity as Chairperson of the Gambia Christian Council, Faal-Heim indicated that Jammeh should accept the lost election and hand over power for the sake of the nation. Intended as a confidential dialogue, the conversation was recorded, later publicized, and has become a frequently recounted reminder for citizens to stand their ground against a president that continued to cling onto power, despite having lost an election.
Another example is that of Fatoumata Jallow Tambajang, a senior political figure who served as a vital point of contact during a political impasse following the 2016 presidential election. Looking back, high ranking soldiers, civil society actors, as well as senior political figures from different political camps acknowledge her unifying role. Despite a controversial interview, she is credited for serving as a silent mediator, convincing unsettled youth and soldiers alike to remain calm and to allow for a smooth transition of power.
Like these actors, there exist numerous individuals and collectives across the continent who put the WPS Agenda into practice, yet their stories remain largely unrecorded and untold.
Reimagining the WPS Agenda
The global erosion of norms and democratic institutions threatens human security and gender equality. As unrestrained coercion increasingly replaces the peaceful resolution of disputes, this “unprecedented disequilibrium” demands a reimagining of peace, security, and order. Without such an approach, both past successes and future potential of the WPS Agenda risk being forgotten.
As we have highlighted in this article, the gaps between institutional frameworks and the realities of peace and conflict work reveal the lack of structural change. A reset is needed – this milestone year for the WPS Agenda offers a timely opportunity for transformation. Therefore, we offer three concluding suggestions:
First, the AU should seize the moment to assure the WPS’s future. Equipped with a strong institutional and policy anchoring, it is now time to actualize the AU’s ambition of a people-driven and people-centered organization that sides with citizens and their ambitions, striving for a more gender-just continent.
Second, funding of WPS implementation is donor-dependent and remains insufficient. WPS implementation on the African continent has a strong component of human security and development. However, donor funding often prioritizes participation and protection. Securing and dispersing funds must happen for all the WPS pillars and there must be a reduction in the competition for funds between the different levels.
Third, leveraging the efforts and lived experiences of peacebuilders for structural change will be key to bringing policies and lived experience closer together. If peace is understood “as a dynamic, ongoing process that occurs through local, often informal actions, even in the most restrictive environments”, as Anderson, Corredor and Zulver suggest, then this is where we ought to look for practices capable of bringing WPS to life. As activist Maggie Lowilla suggests, this requires acknowledging, learning from, and building on the work of feminist thinkers and activists, towards the “ability to act in concert”. To achieve this, Toni Haastrup advocates for integrating already normalized practices into the global WPS framework.
To conclude, realizing the potential of the WPS Agenda is a political project that, in addition to words, requires solidarity, action, and funding. A move away from state-centric approaches will enable the WPS to grow beyond ad-hoc and mechanistic responses and into something capable of challenging systems and power.
