Source · Select Committees · Foreign Affairs Committee
Recommendation 40
40
Accepted
UK's leadership on Women, Peace and Security file must go further
Recommendation
The UK has historically demonstrated strong management and leadership as concerns the Women, Peace and Security file, however it can and must go further. (Conclusion, Paragraph 133)
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the committee, outlining its ongoing commitment and active work as penholder for resolution 1325 to implement the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. They detail current efforts including securing specific language in mandate renewals and the Foreign Secretary's commitment to strategic female involvement in peace and security.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
Agree. 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.