Get Guardian on GoogleWomen accounted for only five per cent of negotiators across 57 peace processes reviewed in 2025, down from seven per cent in the previous year, the United Nations has said.
UN Under-Secretary General and UN Women Executive Director, Sima Bahous, disclosed this while presenting the Secretary General’s annual report on Women, Peace and Security at the United Nations Security Council open debate held at the UN headquarters. Bahous said the declining participation of women in peace negotiations was happening at a time their leadership was increasingly needed, particularly as military spending rises and humanitarian assistance declines.
She however noted that women’s participation reached 22 per cent in the three peace processes led or co-led by the United Nations, although the figure remained below the minimum one-third target.
According to her, nearly 80 per cent of active peace negotiations in 2025 took place without a single woman at the table, despite 26 years of commitments under UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.
She attributed the exclusion to persistent institutional barriers, unequal power relations and deeply entrenched gender norms that continue to deny women opportunities to influence peace processes.
She further disclosed that almost 40 per cent of women and girls living in extreme poverty were in conflict-affected areas, where disruptions to essential services and displacement increased their exposure to gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
On funding, Bahous said a survey of women’s organisations in crisis-affected settings found that 61 per cent were in a worse financial position than a year earlier while 45 per cent had less than six months of funding available.
She described the organisations as critical to protecting rights, sustaining communities and building peace, warning that inadequate funding threatened their ability to carry out these responsibilities. To address the challenges, Bahous called for three major actions, including ensuring that women account for at least one-third of participants in peace processes supported by UN member states.
She also urged donors to allocate at least 15 per cent of official development assistance to conflict-affected countries towards advancing gender equality, with at least one per cent specifically earmarked for women’s organisations. The UN Women chief further called for an end to impunity for crimes against women and girls, including killings, rape, sexual and gender-based violence and gender persecution.
She urged governments to protect women peacebuilders, human rights defenders and humanitarian workers from attacks and reprisals, while ensuring consistent application of international law and the Security Council’s Women, Peace and Security framework. Bahous said the international community must move beyond repeated commitments to concrete action, stressing the need for greater political will to ensure women participate meaningfully in decisions affecting peace and security.
