When women lead, peace lasts

Conflict doesn’t start in a vacuum. It begins when inequality deepens, when climate shocks strike, when debt tightens its grip on economies, and when women’s voices are silenced in the response.

It only takes opening up a news or social media app on your phone to come face to face with the many conflicts raging around the world – from Gaza, to Sudan, from Ukraine to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and beyond. In fact, last year over 185 armed conflicts were recorded, and today 676 million women and girls are living through this reality – the highest recorded number since the 1990s.

Women and girls bear the – often unspoken – impacts of conflict in many forms. Gender-based violence, for example, continues to soar in conflict and crisis settings – with sexual violence increasingly being used as a weapon of war. Child marriage is 14% higher in conflict-affected countries, and intimate partner violence affects 1 in every 7 women in those countries.

And the impacts spread far beyond this. In conflict zones, girls’ education is under fire, access to sexual and reproductive healthcare is curtailed, and pregnant and breastfeeding women face acute malnutrition.

This news isn’t new. Twenty-five years ago, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, a landmark commitment recognising not only how war affects women, but how women transform peace. Indeed, peace processes are proven to be 35% more likely to last 15 years when women are around the negotiating table. 

Across conflict zones, women are not just victims of war but powerful agents of peace. They are stepping into leadership roles, providing humanitarian relief, and advocating for justice and accountability, reminding us that peace is not only forged at negotiating tables but also in communities, where women lead every day.

Take Odette – she has been committed to peacekeeping in DRC since 1996, when the hunt for the Tutsi community began and her family fled to Rwanda. She refused “because home is here in Democratic Republic of Congo”. She created an association called Association of Congolese Women for Reconstruction (AFCOR), which brings together women from all communities in North Kivu, DRC and has played a pivotal role in working towards peaceful coexistence.

And yet, despite many dynamic women leaders, like Odette, both the systemic and financial support for women peacebuilders remains deeply insufficient. They continue to be excluded from official peace-building processes – with less than 1% of funding for peace and security directed to women’s organisations.

This must not be viewed as a failure, but a rallying cry for the international community to step up and deliver on the four pillars of the WPS agenda: Participation, Prevention, Protection, and Relief and Recovery. As conflicts continue to grow, reaffirming the Women, Peace and Security agenda is not just a symbolic act – it is a strategic necessity.

But governments, multilateral institutions, and donors must move beyond empty commitments to concrete action:

• Challenge tokenism: We don’t need another panel on inclusion; we need seats at the table with power, not beside it.
• Expose the contradiction: The world spends trillions on war but less than 1% of peace funding reaches women’s organisations.
• Highlight irony: We call women ‘agents of peace,’ but we keep them waiting in the corridor while the deals are made.

Because when women are included, peace doesn’t just last. It lasts for generations.

Author: Celeste Sangster, Senior Campaigns and Communications Manager

Photo credit: UN Women