Twenty-Five Years After Resolution 1325
As conflicts escalate and funding falters, the future of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda hangs in the balance.
Twenty-five years after a landmark United Nations resolution set out to give women a seat at the table, the backwards slide in women’s rights is accelerating. Goals that were once difficult now seem impossible as campaigners confront renewed barriers to equality in many parts of the world.
In the Middle East, a question mark hangs over the future of women and girls as military spending increases and support networks vanish.
Funding cuts from major government donors have ransacked the sector, with nearly half of local women-led groups in conflict settings expected to shut down within six months.
In Lebanon, the impact has been devastating, not just to programs, but to women’s lives.
“It means fewer safe spaces for survivors, fewer protection officers, fewer legal aid sessions, fewer cash grants for women fleeing violence,” said Jeanne Frangieh, the founder and director of Himaya Daeem AATAA (HDA), a women’s rights NGO in Lebanon.
“What’s heartbreaking is that these weren’t just projects. They were proof that 1325 could work, that women could lead and build peace, if given the chance and the resources,” she said.
Hailed as a turning point when it was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on October 31, 2000, Resolution 1325 recognizes the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls and reaffirms their role in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction.
Now it’s coming under fire amid a global ideological backlash that is dismissing gender as a dirty word and threatening decades of hard-won progress.
With global conflicts at their highest levels since the end of World War II, the need for effective peacebuilding is urgent. Yet too often, women suffer the impacts of war while being denied a role in its prevention and recovery.
“There needs to be a new, radical conception of what women, peace, and security means for the MENA region,” said Eva Tabbasam, Director of Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS), the UK’s civil society network on Women, Peace and Security. “Governments need to have real political will, which is backed with resources and support.”
A recent report by UN Women highlighted the stark impact of shrinking humanitarian support as climate change, food insecurity, and disease outbreaks intensify. In the past year, sexual violence has surged, with women and girls subject to shocking levels of brutality. At the same time, those in public life, including politicians, journalists, and human rights defenders, are targeted with violence and harassment.
“In such a context, the situation will likely become worse before it gets better for women and girls,” warned UN Under-Secretary General and UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous.
Speaking at the Security Council meeting on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) earlier this month, Bahous called for the international community to “refocus, recommit, and ensure that the next twenty-five years deliver much more than the last.”
But some campaigners are questioning whether the resolution is fit for purpose in a world that is increasingly hostile to women’s rights.
“The world has changed, and so have the challenges women face,” Frangieh said, citing the exclusion of women from decision-making, lack of funding, and mounting protection risks.
“The WPS agenda is still vital, but it absolutely needs to evolve.”
The evidence that female participation in peace processes yields more durable and impactful results is backed by extensive research. Yet the number of women involved in conflict resolution is falling, even as global conflicts increase.
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, just eight countries have adopted WPS National Action Plans, detailing how they will implement the commitments made in the resolution.
Progress has been gradual, but tangible gains have been seen in women negotiating prisoner releases and local truces in Syria, ceasefire agreements in Yemen, and participating in peace dialogues in Libya.
The resolution has also provided a platform for collaboration, bringing together women activists across the region to pursue shared goals, most recently with the formation of the WPS Working Group for Arab States in June 2024.
But too often the commitments made on paper fail to translate into action.
A decade after Iraq became the first Arab country to launch the Iraq National Action Plan (INAP) in 2014, optimism has waned. Draconian laws curb women’s freedoms while discriminatory penal code provisions undermine the fight against gender-based violence, honor crimes, child marriage, and other dangerous practices.
In this challenging environment, women’s rights activists have still managed to water down a damaging amendment to Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law, which would have allowed marriage for girls as young as nine.
It’s a reminder that, even in the face of formidable barriers, these organizations perform vital work, often under the banner of 1325.
“What’s key is that the agenda provides a framework that is useful for women's rights organizations to mobilize around,” Tabbasam said. “They can use it to advance the work that they’re doing.”
In Lebanon, the resolution provided a platform to advance ideas that activists like Jeanne Frangieh have been advocating for years. Women-led organizations have gained access and legitimacy, becoming part of a wider network united by a global commitment.
“When Resolution 1325 was adopted, it felt like the world had finally acknowledged something women on the ground had always known: that peace isn’t real unless women are part of it. For so long, women were treated only as victims of war, displacement, and violence, but 1325 recognized that we are also leaders, organizers, mediators, and survivors with power,” said Frangieh.
Overlapping crises have deepened the deterioration of women’s rights in Lebanon, with economic collapse, displacement, political instability, and shrinking civic space contributing to a rise in gender-based violence and early marriage.
As someone who has sat in community centers with survivors, led teams during crises, and watched women leaders burn out because the system didn’t back them, Frangieh is acutely aware of the need for real investment at the grassroots level. “It’s about trusting local women-led organizations, not just inviting them to meetings for show,” she said.
But quarter of a century on, the architecture is creaking as old problems evolve and new challenges emerge. “In a region where the social fabric is so fragile, we cannot afford peace processes that don’t reflect the voices of those who hold communities together.”
“If we want to build peaceful, just, and equal societies, we cannot keep asking women to do more with less, or worse, with nothing at all,” she added.
Palestine’s second National Action Plan sets out objectives to consolidate women’s participation in decision-making, conflict prevention, and peacebuilding. Yet women in Gaza, and across the region, continue to be excluded from peace dialogues, denied space to raise their concerns as the future is mapped out, mainly by men.
“Without women’s voices, true peace will remain elusive,” said Rima Al Nazal, who is coordinator for the National Coalition for Resolution 1325 in Palestine.
True and lasting peace will only be possible with the involvement of Palestinian women. Still, there is no guarantee, except in the perseverance of women’s rights campaigners who refuse to relinquish their role. “Women have made great sacrifices,” said Al Nazal. “If there is a day after the war in which Gaza returns to its people, local feminists will not concede their right to participate.”
A quarter-century after the promise of Resolution 1325, the struggle for women’s inclusion in peace and security remains unfinished. The vision that once galvanized a generation is faltering under the weight of conflict, indifference, and dwindling support. Yet across the Middle East, women are still leading, proving that peace without their voices is no peace at all. The next twenty-five years must not be a reckoning with failure, but a renewal of purpose: to fund, protect, and trust the women who are already holding fractured communities together.
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