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Over twenty-five years ago, at the landmark Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the world made a promise: equal rights and opportunities for all women and girls, everywhere.
Since then, numerous resolutions have been adopted by the United Nations and the international community – including Security Council Resolution 1325 – which affirms that peace and security efforts are more sustainable when women are equal partners.
Yet despite decades of commitments on women’s rights, not a single country can claim to have achieved gender equality. This fact is starkly evident in the peace, security and humanitarian sectors where women are woefully underrepresented.
Over the past 20 years, the majority of peace processes did not include women signatories or mediators. Unprecedented numbers of people continue to live in conflict and crisis contexts and are at increased risk of human rights violations. Women-led civil society organizations are chronically underfunded, and programmes that support women and girls are at risk of disappearing at the very moment they are needed most.
The WPS-HA Compact Framework provides a clear path for Member States, United Nations entities, regional organizations, private sector actors, and civil society – including women-led and youth organizations, NGOs, and academic institutions – to take concerted action on Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action over the next five years.
Download the Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action Compact Framework, which sets out the Compact’s prioritized thematic issues and their associated actions.
For too long, the efforts of the international community have been siloed and we have fallen short of our goals. However, through the united effort of our Signatories, the Compact aims to reshape peace and security and humanitarian action processes to systematically include women and girls in the decisions that impact their lives.
We are calling for five years of action on the promises we’ve already made. The Compact builds on decades of work and lessons learned on women, peace and security and humanitarian action. But this time, to ensure our success, we are making collaboration, action and accountability our cornerstones.
There’s no doubt about it, gender equality benefits everyone. It’s good for our economies and for sustainable development. It makes peace treaties more likely to last and it saves lives by making women and girls more resilient to crisis. When women’s rights are upheld, States are less likely to use violence, abuse human rights, and experience conflict or war.
