Source · Select Committees · Foreign Affairs Committee
Recommendation 20
20
Deferred
UK must continue raising critical files at UNSC despite challenging geopolitical environment.
Conclusion
We recognise that the UK’s Mission to the United Nations is operating in an increasingly fraught and challenging geopolitical environment, but that should not preclude the UK from raising and debating files such as Myanmar and Sudan at the United Nations Security Council. (Conclusion, Paragraph 78)
Government Response Summary
The government's response details its extensive work as penholder on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, including efforts to implement it across UNSC work, secure language on women's rights in mandates, and ensure women's strategic involvement in peace and security matters. It does not directly address the committee's point about raising and debating specific files like Myanmar and Sudan.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
57. As the penholder of resolution 1325 (2005) and as a signatory of the Shared Commitments on Women and Peace and Security (WPS), a cross-regional group of countries championing WPS in the UN Security Council, HMG is working to implement the WPS agenda across all of the Council’s work. The UK Mission in New York includes women at every stage of the penholding process on WPS including through consulting women diaspora and experts in conflict resolution and CRSV. Policy teams leading on WPS, conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) feed into the UK’s action and engagement on all relevant UN Security Council files. 58. While current dynamics and national priorities amongst the Council membership are less favourable than previous years in progressing these agendas, HMG will continue to fiercely defend the progress that has been made, and push for further action through securing language on women’s rights in UN Security Council products. In order to retain existing successful products and mandates, the UK deploys expert negotiators and policy professionals to identify individual challenges to ambitious language and to identify places for growth and opportunities for retention where not possible to push progress forwards. HMG deploys its strategic influence and diplomatic levers to this end and has most recently successfully secured language in the mandate renewals on Colombia (on women’s participation) and South Sudan (on CRSV). 59. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has affirmed, including at the “Beijing+30” side event at UNGA High-Level Week 2025, that women’s involvement in peace and security matters must not be symbolic, it must be strategic, demanding change and ensuring safety. The UK is proud to lead global action both in and outside of the UN, in collaboration with international partners and civil society, and will continue to ensure that women are at the heart of peace and security for the next 25 years and beyond.