Twenty-five years after its adoption, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is often assessed by its gaps: it is underfunded, under-implemented and under constant pressure to prove its worth. But beyond resolutions and rhetoric, women have been turning promises into progress. In the streets of Monrovia, the negotiating rooms of Havana, the villages of Bougainville, and far beyond, the WPS agenda has not only inspired change; it has delivered it.
Far from abstract, these successes are concrete, hard-won and often overlooked. They serve as quiet blueprints for what’s possible when political will, community leadership and gendered insight align.
Liberia: Women who ended a war
In the early 2000s, when Liberia was caught in the grip of a brutal civil war, a coalition of Christian and Muslim women came together under the banner of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Wearing white t-shirts and armed only with persistence, they launched a sustained campaign of nonviolent protest, sit-ins and moral pressure. They refused to leave until the warring parties negotiated.
Their efforts helped force the peace talks that led to the end of the conflict. It was one of the clearest demonstrations in recent history of women not only participating in peace processes, but catalysing them. Not long after, Liberia elected Africa’s first female head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
For the WPS agenda, Liberia became a symbol, not of victimhood, but of agency. It was proof that women are not just beneficiaries of peace, but builders of it.
Colombia: Gender at the heart of peace
In 2012, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a guerrilla militant group, sat down to negotiate an end to Latin America’s longest conflict. When these talks were announced, women’s groups and civil society organisations demanded more than symbolic inclusion. Their advocacy led to the establishment of a gender sub-commission within the talks—a first for any formal peace process.
The final 2016 agreement contained more than 130 gender-related provisions, including commitments on women’s participation, land restitution and protection against sexual violence. While implementation has faced challenges, the accord remains the most gender-sensitive peace agreement in history.
Colombia didn’t just add women in. It redesigned the architecture of peace to reflect their realities and aspirations. And in doing so, it set a precedent others can learn from.
Bougainville: The mothers of the land
In the wake of the Bougainville civil war, it was not formal institutions but the quiet authority of women that helped broker peace. Drawing on matrilineal cultural norms and community trust, women became mediators, messengers and moral anchors during the most fragile phases of the peace process.
Their contributions were not framed by international frameworks or donor templates. They were grounded in custom, credibility and care. But they aligned perfectly with the principles of WPS: locally led, culturally embedded and strategically effective.
Today, women in Bougainville remain active in community conflict prevention and are vocal in shaping the region’s political future. Their story is a reminder that WPS doesn’t always look like a resolution—it often looks like relationships.
The Pacific and beyond: Quiet infrastructure
Timor-Leste offers another example of early success. Women who had participated in the struggle for independence successfully pushed for gender provisions in the post-conflict constitution. Today, Timor-Leste has one of the highest rates of women’s parliamentary representation in Asia. The foundations were laid not just in law, but in the legitimacy that women had built during conflict and transition.
Across the Pacific, women’s networks continue to engage in conflict prevention, disaster response and local mediation, often without formal recognition or stable funding. Their work is invisible to most strategic planners, but vital to community resilience.
Globally, there are other encouraging signs: NATO and the European Union have embedded gender perspectives into operational planning; UN peacekeeping missions now deploy gender advisors as standard practice; and countries such as Rwanda, Namibia and New Zealand consistently rank among the highest in women’s political participation.
Lessons from the wins
These stories don’t diminish the gaps in WPS implementation, but they do reframe the narrative. When WPS is treated as a strategic approach rather than a symbolic gesture, when women are included from the beginning, and when gendered dynamics are embedded into analysis and action, the outcomes are stronger.
Common threads exist. Success happened when the agenda was: locally led and driven by those closest to the conflict, not imposed externally; politically supported and backed by real authority, not just policy statements; practically resourced with funding, training and long-term commitment; and integrated into strategy, not siloed or treated as optional.
Too often, hope is dismissed as naive. But in the WPS context, hope has been operationalised. It has mobilised movements, shaped negotiations and rebuilt institutions. It’s not soft; it’s structural.
The WPS agenda works—when we let it.
As we mark 25 years of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the question isn’t whether its promise has been kept in full—we know it hasn’t. The real question is whether we’re ready to scale what already works. These quiet victories aren’t ornamental; they are foundational. If the next 25 years are to deliver on the agenda’s transformative potential, this is where we begin.