Women, Peace and Security... And Climate Change
Photo credit: U.S Department of State
By Julia Driemeier Vieira Rosa, Researcher at EmpoderaClima.
WARNING: The following article includes mentions of ongoing international conflicts and sexual violence. Reader discretion is advised.
When discussing the relation between the “Women, Peace and Security” (WPS) agenda and climate change, we must keep two premises in mind: first, climate change and security are gendered issues, and second, climate change is a security risk multiplier that should be considered a security issue as well. This article explores the inclusion of threats caused by a changing global climate within the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) WPS framework and what that could mean for the future of climate and gender security.
What is “Women, Peace and Security”?
Adopted on October 31, 2000, UNSC Resolution 1325 recognizes the unequal impacts of conflict on women and girls and urges UN member states to increase female participation in peacekeeping operations and overall decision-making levels. The resolution not only recognizes the gendered nature of international conflict but also that female participation is crucial to both preventing and resolving conflicts, securing and maintaining peace worldwide.
Resolution 1325 addresses four main fronts: the role of women in preventing conflict; female participation in peacebuilding; upholding and protecting women and girls’ rights during and after conflict; and recognizing gendered needs during peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts and in post-conflict reconstruction.
It is important to note that WPS does not imply that men and boys do not feel the burden and violence of conflict as intensely as women and girls do. Conflict, violence and insecurity affect everyone involved profoundly, but its impacts can be felt differently due to marginalization, political exclusion and socioeconomic hierarchization, especially because of men’s historical predominance in decision-making spaces. Women are usually silent victims and excluded combatants, but have always been active in war and conflict. By adopting an intersectional approach, WPS aims to correct this historical exclusion and highlight the importance of female voices in security discussions and conflict resolution.
Since its adoption, WPS has expanded to include wide-ranging issues women and girls face in conflict, such as sexual violence, human trafficking, and displacement. It has also served to increase female participation in UN peacekeeping efforts. According to the UN Action of Peacekeeping, between 1957 and 1989, only 20 uniformed women participated in UN peacekeeping efforts, compared to 2022 where that number grew to 6808 out of 73056 UN peacekeepers across all areas ranging from civilian, military, police and justice and correctional services.
The WPS agenda does not only exist within the UN peacebuilding system; over 100 National Action Plans (NAP) adopted by member-states outline concrete actions that governments need to take to implement UNSCR 1325 and its branching frameworks at the national and local level. To demonstrate what NAPs can include, we selected two countries in different contexts of active conflict and some steps they have taken to promote WPS objectives: Burkina Faso and Ukraine.
Burkina Faso
Photo credit: Devex, 2020.
The security situation in Burkina Faso has significantly worsened over the last few years. Political instability and the rise of terrorist activity in the Sahel region have increased violence and displacement in the African country. In 2012, the country adopted its first NAP for the period of 2013 - 2016. Actions include:
Establishing a working group on WPS in the Sahel;
Creating a national women’s unit in the Sahel to support the integration and consideration of women’s needs in the region’s development and stability;
Providing assistance to women who have been victims of sexual violence by increasing the number of care centers and strengthening the capacity of health workers, security and legal personnel in responding to their needs.
Ukraine
Photo credit: Chatham House, 2024
Since 2022, the world has followed the Russia-Ukraine conflict closely. The invasion of Ukrainian territory has provoked active conflict between the two countries and forced millions to leave their homes behind. Ukraine adopted its first NAP in 2016, which lasted until 2020, when it was subsequently extended to 2025. While the invasion halted further discussions on the NAP, notable highlights include:
Developing educational activities and information campaigns for specialists in the security and defense sectors, which facilitate women’s training and involvement in peacekeeping processes;
Providing law enforcement and military personnel with uniforms that take into consideration women’s anthropometric measurements;
“Effectively implementing a WPS NAP is easier said than done: war and conflict make it harder to monitor public policy, much less the upheaval of human and women’s rights. ”
However, it is crucial that the UN system and its member states take on a gendered approach to security issues in order to promote equality and justice in the peacebuilding and maintenance process.
How can we include climate change within “Women, Peace and Security”?
Climate change is a threat multiplier: it exacerbates existing societal challenges that can lead to further instability in regions already predisposed to conflict, or even provoke insecurity in peaceful areas. Risks range from humanitarian to political and economic impacts, further burdening people, states and the international community. It also perpetuates and aggravates existing inequalities between men and women, the latter experiencing the impacts of climate change, insecurity and conflict most profoundly.
The interrelation between climate change and security can be summarized in the following categories: conflict over resources; economic damage and infrastructural degradation (especially in coastal cities and insular nations); loss of territory and border disputes; environmentally-induced migration; increase in state fragility and social radicalization; conflict over energy supply, and international conflict and governance pressure.
Even though the connection between the risks posed by climate change and gender inequality are well known, they continue to be underexplored within the WPS agenda, having been briefly mentioned in UNSCR 2242 in 2015. The reason for this may reside in the fact that climate change as a security issue that falls within the UNSC mandate is a controversial and widely disputed topic. Nonetheless, there are essential contingency points between WPS and climate change that must be explored within the agenda through the NAPs as individually proposed and developed by member states.
Currently, only 17 out of 80 states include climate change in their WPS NAP. The first step to change this reality is raising awareness about the intersection of climate change, gender and security. Governments play an important part in this process, but so do civil society groups in promoting open discussions and conducting research on this interrelation.
To further incorporate climate change as a security risk through a gendered perspective, NAPs should include:
Data collection and research on how climate change impacts women and girls differently, both in times of peace and insecurity;
Climate policies that are gender-sensitive and that address the needs and vulnerabilities of women and girls, ranging from access to resources to disaster preparedness;
Engage women in all decision-making spaces, including in the energy and climate sector;
Ensure that climate financing promotes female leadership, gender equality and women's empowerment;
Design climate interventions and sustainable development projects that do not aggravate existing societal tensions and security challenges;
Promote partnerships between climate, security and gender actors by encouraging knowledge-sharing and resources to address complex socioeconomic challenges;
Regularly monitor and evaluate the integration of climate change into the WPS agenda.
By integrating climate change into the Women, Peace and Security agenda, we can create more comprehensive and effective strategies to address the challenges posed by climate change, while promoting gender equality and empowering women in the process.
