Beyond the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda

"Contemporary challenges to international peace and security look very different from those faced by the international community at the turn of the millennium. This implies that new issues and dilemmas must also be addressed and integrated into the Women, Peace and Security Agenda." -Torunn Tryggestad

The women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda, rooted in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), created a rhetorical and normative shift toward gender equality in international policy and has since become a cornerstone of the conflict prevention and post-conflict resolution processes. Though it is revolutionary in many ways, it remains limited in scope, and a focus on gender equality in international relations shouldn’t be bound solely by this approach.

Join us for a panel discussion exploring how we can piggyback off of and push beyond women, peace, and security. We'll explore the following questions:

-What is on the WPS agenda, and how is it limited in its framework?
-Does the inclusion of women in peace processes grant any power to transform and engage unequal structures or does it only legitimize them?
-Who are the women representing other women in such processes, and how can that be problematic?
-How do we transform peace processes as they are with gendered dynamics in mind?
-What lies beyond the WPS agenda?

Panelists include:
Vix Anderton, Gender Specialist
Henri Myrttinen, Head of Gender and Peacebuilding at Alert International
Serena Chaudhry, TV News Producer at Reuters News Agency
Fred Carver, Head of Policy at UNA-UK
Claire Yorke, Doctoral Researcher at the Department of War Studies at King's College London

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For those new to the WPS agenda, we recommend the following reads:

1. United Nations Peacekeeping - Women, peace, and security: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/issues/women/wps.shtml

2. Cohn, Kinsella, Gibbings - Women, Peace, and Security Resolution 1325: https://genderandsecurity.org/sites/default/files/women_peace_and_security_resolution_1325_-_carol_cohn.pdf

3. UN Women - Women at the forefront of peacebuilding: http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/women-peace-security