What the First Regional WPS Open Day Reveals About the Future of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in the Arab Region

The first-ever Regional Open Day on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), concluded with a clear message: the WPS agenda remains pivotal; however, its advancement in the Arab States continues to face significant challenges. Advancing it now demands renewed political will, stronger protection for civil society, and solutions grounded in women’s lived realities across conflict-affected and post-conflict contexts.

Held in Amman from 2 to 4 December, the Open Day brought together close to 100 participants, including government representatives, policymakers, UN entities, international partners, and women-led civil society organizations from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and beyond. Organized by UN Women’s Regional Office for the Arab States, the gathering marked the 25th anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and offered a candid, solutions-oriented assessment of where the WPS agenda stands today and where it risks falling back.

A Region at a Crossroads: Progress Under Pressure

Participants recognized that meaningful progress has been made in advancing the WPS agenda. Several countries have adopted National Action Plans (NAPs), with some advancing to second- and third-generation NAPs, signaling strong political will, deep institutional engagement, and fruitful collaboration between governments and civil society actors. Together, these developments point to a genuine commitment to this agenda and articulate a clear vision for transformative change. Yet adopting NAPs alone does not drive change. As Heba Zayyan, UN Women’s Regional Advisor on Women, Peace, Security, and Humanitarian Action, noted:

“Across the region, we now have nine National Action Plans on WPS, including second- and third generation NAPs. This clearly articulates state commitments and provides a platform for a more unified vision between governments and civil society. However, adoption alone is insufficient. What remains critical is strategic, adequately resourced implementation that translates commitments into tangible, measurable improvements in the lives of women in conflict- and post-conflict-affected contexts.”

Echoing this, H.E. Doaa’ Khalifa, Minister Plenipotentiary and Director of the Women’s Department at the League of Arab States, emphasized:

"Delivering the full and effective implementation of Resolution 1325 demands unwavering political will and firm commitment from decision-makers. Only then can it serve as a driving force for advancing the WPS agenda and for shaping a more secure, just, and equitable future for the Arab region.”

Many participants have highlighted mounting challenges that threaten to reverse hard-won gender equality gains in the region, including shrinking civic space, severe global aid cuts affecting women’s organizations, rising militarization and armed conflict, and an anti-rights backlash that undermines women’s participation and rights.  Without collective and strategic responses, these pressures risk hollowing out the WPS agenda.

Identifying Priority Actions for the Way Forward

Despite the challenges, discussions highlighted some key priorities for the future of the WPS agenda in the Arab States region.

1. Localizing the WPS Agenda: “Start with women’s daily realities.”

Participants emphasized that peace cannot be built from conference rooms alone. National Action Plans must be rooted in community needs rather than drafted behind closed doors, and progress must be measured through indicators that reflect the diverse lived experiences of women, including at the grassroots level.

WPS core pillars: Participation, Protection, Prevention, and Relief & Recovery, should be embedded in education systems, media narratives, and youth and civic engagement initiatives. It is paramount to ensure that women have access to negotiation tables, mediation efforts, and all spaces associated with formal peacebuilding, while also enabling and supporting women’s leadership in conflict prevention and peacebuilding at the local level. Creating spaces for cooperation, dialogue, and constituency-building among diverse groups of women engaged in peacebuilding can contribute to transforming conflict and post-conflict contexts towards greater inclusion, equity, and justice.

2. Civil Society Inclusion: “Women are not guests at the table; they are builders of peace.”

Women must be recognized as co-architects of peace processes, not merely as symbolic participants. Key recommendations included ensuring women mediators are present at negotiation tables, systematically tracking their inputs and contributions, and guaranteeing representation for women who are usually left behind such as women with disabilities or women from minority groups, and establishing formal mechanisms that can support institutionalization of participation. Where women’s organizations have been fully integrated into governance structures, participants noted, WPS implementation has been the strongest.

3. Promoting Accountability: “Without Justice, There Is No Peace”

Across discussions, accountability emerged as a missing pillar of the WPS agenda. Participants called for closing legal loopholes that allow perpetrators of violence against women, including conflict-related sexual violence, to evade justice. They emphasized the need to protect women activists and women human rights defenders by leveraging existing domestic and international mechanisms, including the Human Rights Council and UN Security Council tools, to amplify women’s voices, pursue justice, and end impunity.

They also underscored the need to strengthen regional feminist networks to monitor commitments, expose impunity, and sustain pressure for reform.

The Backlash Against Women’s Rights and Its Impact on the WPS Landscape

The participants noted that the backlash against women’s rights is not episodic but structural, driven by intersecting conservative social forces, restrictive legal environments, shrinking civic space, and deliberate efforts to delegitimize feminist narratives and advocacy. Participants also highlighted how power structures – tribal, political, and colonial – intersect in contexts such as Palestine, where occupation compounds institutional weakness and entrenches negative social norms, severely constraining women’s protection and civic and political participation. They highlighted the importance of safeguarding women’s rights narratives and building solidarity among gender equality actors as essential to resisting fragmentation and pushing against the backlash.

Civil Society’s Vision for the Way Forward

In a workshop preceding the WPS Open Day event, a group of civil society actors from across the Arab region jointly drafted a document articulating a shared vision and civil society participation and leadership for the next phase of the WPS agenda implementation in the region. Grounded in collective reflection and participatory analysis, the document moves beyond commemorating the 25th anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325 to tackle the structural gaps that continue to constrain women’s influence in peace and security processes.

The document translates a wealth of experience in civil society advocacy into a practical roadmap organized around three interlinked tracks. It calls for institutionalized participation of women and civil society across peace and security processes, elevates accountability as a core pillar of the WPS agenda through justice-centered implementation and independent oversight, and anchors the agenda in local realities through inclusive, bottom-up approaches. It signals the importance of shifting beyond participation to power-sharing with the civil society actors, underscoring that women’s meaningful engagement must be backed by decision-making authority, accountability for violations, and sustained, flexible financing for women-led organizations.

The civil society actors also encouraged regional and international institutions to deepen their engagement with women-led civil society actors, underscoring that political will, institutional openness, and adequate resourcing are essential to maintaining the momentum of the WPS agenda and advancing just and durable peace in the Arab region.

A Post-25-Year Reckoning

Twenty-five years after the adoption of Security Council resolution 1325, the assessment from Amman was clear: progress without accountability, resources, and local ownership is not progress at all. The WPS agenda remains indispensable, particularly in the Arab region, as it is continuously marked by protracted conflict and political transition. But without political courage, structural reform, and sustained investment in women’s leadership at all levels, its promise risks erosion.

The next chapter of WPS in the Arab region must therefore be defined by impact delivered, not commitments renewed. The post-25-year phase demands a decisive shift toward women as architects of peace and security, not beneficiaries of it.