Following International Women’s Day, one thing is clear: 23 years after the first United Nations Security Council resolution on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), Western states are not sufficiently equipped to implement the WPS program at home.
Examination of National Action Plans (NAPs) drafted by Western states in response to UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) WPS reveals the glaring absence of national considerations. Western NAPs that include inward-facing commitments portray them as secondary elements, which pale in comparison to the number of stated commitments and key departments mobilized as part of international aid and military efforts there. ‘foreign.
Countries like Canada and Sweden, which (until the recent change in political climate in Sweden’s case) proudly displayed their feminist approach to foreign policy (see for example Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy Handbook and the Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy), have not taken a significantly more humble approach to recognizing national WPS challenges and addressing them through commitments within the framework of the NAPs.
The case of Canada
Canada, for example, although taking a leading role in the implementation of the WPS initiative, has certain gaps at the national level in its NAP (2017-2022), in particular with regard to its own well-known problems. about indigenous women’s rights and cases of harassment and sexual assault within its armed forces.
Although Canada recognizes in its NAP that the situation of Indigenous women at the national level is a matter of peace and security, the provisions leave certain key elements unresolved (see Implementation of Canada’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security by the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs and the Ministry of Indigenous Services).
Notably, no commitment appears to have been made to reduce violence on reserves — which disproportionately affects women (see National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Final Report, Reclaiming Our Power and Our place) — or to facilitate Aboriginal women’s access to justice when they are victims/survivors of violent acts. While Canada’s NAP (NAPC) includes a commitment to respond to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ Calls for Justice, most related actions relate to compensation for victims and their families ( without a commitment to the effective legal impunity of the perpetrators), and very few measures focus on prevention.
With respect to the PANC’s commitment to Canada’s defense and armed forces, some key national elements are indeed found in the Implementation by the Department of National Defense and the Canadian Armed Forces of the action plan National Program on Women, Peace and Security, such as the recruitment and promotion of women, the education and training of personnel on women and conflict, and the integration of Benchmarking into operations between the sexes (GBA+).
However, when it comes to harassment and sexual assault within its ranks, the operationalization of the pledge remains questionable, as the plan references Operation Honour, which ended in 2021 and was scaled down to Path of Dignity and Respect initiative (of which Operation Honor was originally a part). In addition, the Pathway does not include a publicly available performance measurement framework to track progress (unlike the old Operation Honour).
The downscaling of this key NAP commitment to Canada’s approach to reducing sexual harassment and assault within its Armed Forces is another example that Western NAPs, as they currently stand , do not fully serve their national purpose, especially when compared to the magnitude of resources devoted to overseas engagements. That said, Canada’s NAP is far from the only sub-optimal NAP nationally.
The need to rethink the national components of NAPs
The original framework of the WPS initiative (dating back to the drafting of resolution 1325) is partly responsible for the misrepresentation of women and conflict in general, as well as the expected reach of the WPS initiative (that is i.e. it would take effect in conflict-affected states and nowhere else). Presented by resolution 1325 as a role of victim, the Security Council’s perspective on women and conflict has since been broadened to include the “participation of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, as well as in the consolidation of peace” (S/RES/1889 (2009)).
While this perspective rightly remains focused on the participation of women from conflict-affected states, it is no longer limited to this narrow definition and represents an opportunity for non-conflict-affected states to review their security apparatus and the challenges about security in their country from a feminist perspective.
Thus, the WPS initiative — shaped not only by resolution 1325, but by all subsequent UN Security Council resolutions — is meant to be a comprehensive tool (perhaps only because there is no other of this type and magnitude) to guide all security-related interventions through a feminist lens. It is therefore essential that Western countries rethink the national elements of their NAPs and that the United Nations publish a clear political framework to align future NAPs with (including clarity on what constitutes a strong national response to initiative).
The fact that Western countries—many of whom are positioning themselves as champions of the agenda and were among the first to develop NAPs—have interpreted the WPS initiative as broadly applicable to international assistance and military presence abroad betrays the imperial currents often highlighted in the field of foreign policy. Ownership by Western countries of their own peace and security issues and the presence in NAPs of feminist commitments on national issues will be necessary for the successful implementation of the UN initiative.