Leonie STAMM

Research Fellow, Europe Centre, German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)

While the current conflictual and geopolitical environment makes the Women, Peace and Security agenda ever more relevant, it is being weakened by three mutually reinforcing processes: rising authoritarianism, the geopolitical instrumentalisation of (anti)gender, and the de-prioritisation of WPS by some of its traditional supporters.

For some time, the Women, Peace and Security agenda (WPS) appeared to be driven by consistent institutional progress. While there was also ongoing criticism of the depth and scope of the agenda’s implementation, the number of countries committing to it was steadily increasing: by December 2025, 116 countries had adopted a national action plan on WPS – compared to just 19 in 2010. An increasing number of regional organisations adopted their respective frameworks and strategies, and the importance of women’s equal participation, along with evidence for it, gained international recognition. But this progress has stalled in recent years. The agenda’s 25th anniversary in 2025 took place in a much more adverse political environment, with a crumbling multilateral system, rising conflict and militarisation, and growing attacks on and contestation of gender rights.

This was also reflected in the UN Secretary-General’s latest report on WPS, which notes the “stagnation and even regression across many of the goals of the women and peace and security agenda”. The report “sounds the alarm on […] horrific levels of violence” in countries such as Afghanistan, DRC, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan and Palestine. And also, the most recent report from this year shows this as an ongoing trend. It documents record numbers of violent conflict: in 2025, 756 million women and girls were living within 50 kilometres of a deadly conflict event. Global military expenditure is at an all-time high, while foreign aid is at a historic low. In this context, bringing the WPS agenda back to the centre of attention should be crucial. Instead, amid funding cuts, 42 per cent of UN entities see a weakening of their gender efforts. Almost a quarter of the states implementing the Beijing Platform for Action report backlashes against women’s rights that weaken legal protection and increase discrimination. Also in the UN Security Council, the percentage of Security Council decisions that included language on gender dropped to the lowest level since 2008, due to greater contestation. With regard to the bigger picture, not a single indicator of Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality will be met within the agreed timeframe.

These developments are not separate from one another but can be understood as products of three interlinked political developments: rising authoritarianism, the instrumentalisation of (anti)gender as a geopolitical tool, and the de-prioritisation of WPS by some of its traditional supporters. 

First, regarding rising authoritarianism, this year’s V-Dem report shows that globally, almost all aspects of democracy have declined significantly in recent decades. Just 7 per cent of the global population live in liberal democracies, while 74 per cent live in autocracies. Furthermore, there is an increasing transnational element to this development: illiberal and authoritarian actors are building alliances, trying to dismantle multilateral institutions from within and contesting liberal norms. The illiberal playbook includes attempts to restrict civic space, undermine women’s rights organisations, delegitimise gender equality and LGBTIQ+ rights as a political objective and roll back protections relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights. This directly affects the goals of the WPS agenda, which is built on the premise that women’s participation, rights and protection are integral to democracy, peace and security. When these principles are portrayed as foreign impositions, when women’s organisations are treated as political opponents and when the space for civil society is shrinking, the space for implementing WPS commitments dwindles. 

Second, regarding the geopolitics of (anti)gender, it can be seen that within this broader authoritarian trend, (anti)gender has become a strategic resource in its own right. Some countries have turned away from WPS very publicly: US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s announcement that WPS would be cancelled, characterising it as a ‘woke’ initiative, is an example of this visible contestation. The US shift to the anti-gender camp, together with corresponding funding cuts, was particularly disruptive for the ecosystem of the WPS agenda. Furthermore, other state actors are also driving the anti-gender mobilisation: Russia is using anti-gender narratives both domestically and in its foreign policy to mobilise against the ‘West’.

In Europe, Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán used anti-gender rhetoric to block key EU decisions and legislation. Rising far-right parties such as Germany’s AfD promote those narratives, too. These actors are not only challenging women’s rights and gender equality domestically but increasingly use gender as a strategic tool: to signal political identity, build alliances and contest the legitimacy of international norms. The narratives of these anti-gender actors aim to polarise – their own and other – societies, mobilise and radicalise constituencies and contest the normative architecture of the liberal international order, especially using the multilateral level as an arena. The WPS agenda is consequently not only contested for its own sake but increasingly caught in broader geopolitical struggles over power and the international order.

Third, regarding the de-prioritisation of WPS, in a context where gender equality is being so strongly contested, the actors who support the agenda need to invest more, both financially and politically, and coordinate more closely to build coalitions in a polarised multilateral environment. But amid geopolitical competition, rising defence expenditure, ongoing conflict and diminishing budgets, the WPS agenda is often de-prioritised by those actors best placed to advance it. This can be seen in the declining political attention to the agenda, the non-renewal of national action plans and shrinking funding for WPS goals. When security is increasingly understood in military terms, conflict prevention, inclusive mediation, support for women’s peacebuilding organisations and the protection of civic space become secondary to immediate strategic priorities. Human rights and civil society organisations have repeatedly warned of this trend.

These three trends reinforce each other – but while overt attacks on the WPS agenda tend to generate scrutiny, mobilise defenders and produce a documented record of contestation, the expiry of national action plans or their reduced funding, by contrast, escapes the mainstream’s attention. At this juncture, actors face a double task: responding to increasingly overt challenges to the agenda while simultaneously identifying and addressing forms of erosion that proceed less noticed.

Photo credits: UN Photo/Loey Felipe