Women in Multilateral Peace Operations 2023: What is the State of Play?

In the year 2000, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women and peace and security stressed the link between gender equality and international peace and security. The resolution underscored the importance of the full and equal participation of women in all efforts towards peace and security, including UN peace operations. Following the resolution, organizations and member states involved in multilateral peace operations committed to increasing women’s participation. More than 20 years after the adoption of the resolution, some progress has been achieved but much remains to be done.

This booklet provides an overview of women’s participation in multilateral peace operations, including data and trends regarding women’s representation in leadership roles, overall personnel and member states’ contributions. It looks at UN peace operations, European Union Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions and operations, and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) field operations. Its objectives are to support the efforts to increase the representation of women in peace operations, and to inform and foster the debate on the future of the women and peace and security agenda in this context.

The statistics presented in this booklet illustrate to what extent organizations and their member states are making progress towards increasing women’s representation in multilateral peace operations. Overall, they show that organizations are still falling short of their own strategic targets for women’s participation, signalling a clear need to redouble efforts to achieve these goals. They also highlight that gender equality remains particularly elusive within leadership roles, which calls for a focus on leadership as a critical component of any strategy aimed at enhancing women’s representation.