NATO is committed to integrating Women, Peace, and Security
(WPS) across all its tasks in the 2022 Strategic Concept and the
revised NATO Policy on WPS endorsed by Heads of State at the
2024 NATO Summit in Washington, D.C. The NATO Strategic
Concept referenced the Women, Peace and Security (WPS)
agenda for the first time in 2022. This was a significant move
since it elevated a gender perspective from the margins to a more
central position in the Alliance’s agenda. The revised NATO
Policy on WPS endorsed by Heads of State in 2024 reinforces
this. The endorsement reflects the reality that the WPS agenda,
and a gender perspective, is all the more relevant as the Alliance
returns to a primary focus on deterrence and defense following
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.1
Russia
is indeed waging a deeply gendered war in terms of the use of
conflict-related sexual violence, but also in its broader attack on
NATO values, including gender equality, through the promotion
of “traditional” family values.
This Policy Brief looks ahead to consider the question of what
NATO’s commitment to WPS, as outlined in the Strategic
Concept and the revised NATO WPS Policy, would look like if
it were realized in practice, specifically through the NATO WPS
Action Plan due for renewal in 2025. To do so, it engages with
how WPS and a gender perspective have been institutionalized
in NATO, noting that advances in this agenda have often not
taken the “usual” or proscribed route within the Alliance.
It is, therefore, an area ripe for innovation in terms of its
implementation. The WPS agenda is now in a strong position
at NATO with buy-in from its Member States.2
The next step
is realizing the strategic vision for WPS’ implementation
set out in the revised NATO WPS Policy (2024) through the
development of the NATO Action Plan on WPS due in 2025.
Such an approach would drive the Alliance’s long-term WPS
priorities into the future and ensure WPS’ institutionalization
at all levels, political and, especially, military. It must rely on
gender-responsive leadership to strengthen existing gender
expertise across the Alliance and ensure accountability.
Realizing Women, Peace, and Security as
an Asset for Operational Effectiveness
The WPS agenda emerged from UN Security Council Resolution
(UNSCR) 1325, adopted in 2000, and the nine follow-up
resolutions. It recognizes women’s agency and calls for women’s
participation in peace and security while acknowledging the
gendered impact of conflict, which often disproportionately
impacts women. These two aspects of the WPS agenda are
mutually reinforcing.3
The realization of UNSCR 1325 relied on
insiders and outsiders to the Security Council, including civil
society, which remain crucial knowledge brokers of WPS.4
NATO’s initial formal policy engagement with WPS in 2007
did not come with civil society involvement; rather, it built on a
concern related to the status of women in NATO forces on the
one hand and operational requirements vis-à-vis Afghanistan,
specifically counterinsurgency, on the other. This has set NATO
apart from the UN Security Council and other national and
regional level engagements with WPS that have been premised
on civil society consultation. It also demonstrates the nexus between WPS and a gender perspective in NATO’s approach.5
However, since 2014 the Alliance has consulted civil society
formally on its WPS policy, the first time it has done so on any
policy area.6
The Civil Society Advisory Panel (CSAP) on WPS
provides an important pool of expertise for NATO to draw on in
strengthening its approach to WPS.7
NATO’s engagement also did not come out of the blue. It
mapped onto decades of organizing within the Alliance to
strengthen the status of women in the armed forces of the
Alliance, including through the then Committee on Women in
NATO Forces (CWINF), which first met in 1961. It was through
CWINF that senior military women organized meetings in the
1960s on issues concerning the recruitment and retention of
women in the armed forces and successfully advocated for the
committee’s formal recognition in 1976. From 2002, CWINF led
on NATO’s WPS work, introducing the topic within the Alliance
and including the monitoring of the agenda’s implementation
among Allies. In 2009, CWINF became the NATO Committee
on Gender Perspectives (NCGP), recognizing its expanded
remit to monitor and support NATO’s implementation of WPS
by promoting the integration of a gender perspective into the
design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies,
programs, and military operations.
NATO’s engagement with WPS has relied upon decades of
military women’s advocacy within NATO and now benefits from
broader institutional buy-in, including from men. However, the
agenda has always gained traction when it has been perceived as
providing “added value” for the Alliance, including improving
operational effectiveness. For example, the Alliance would not
have engaged formally with the agenda when it did without its
involvement in Afghanistan through the International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) from 2001-2014.8
Afghanistan saw
a “new” way of fighting with counterinsurgency operations
(COIN), given the reality that at the operational and tactical
levels there was a need to incorporate a gender perspective, as
the central focus of the campaign was the Afghan population.
This led to the deployment of Female Engagement Teams and
Cultural Support Teams, which instrumentalized gender as
a “new strategic asset,” demonstrating that the U.S. (and, by
extension, NATO) was “no longer fighting its battles with
outmoded methods.”9
In NATO’s current operations in Iraq,
Kosovo, and the Baltics, the military continues to have a key
role in implementing WPS, with states such as Canada driven
to lead on the agenda through Canada’s commitment to its own
Feminist Foreign Policy and because of the perceived added
value it provides to supporting operational effectiveness.10 This
is not to say there are no significant challenges to living up to
WPS in practice. For example, Canada was recently criticized for
not apologizing to an employee who had been sexually assaulted
by a NATO soldier while deployed as part of NATO’s Enhanced
Forward Presence in Latvia.11
WPS has also been seen as valuable to NATO in building
partnerships. A key example is NATO’s partnership with Sweden
before its bid for NATO membership. Sweden’s involvement
in ISAF helped shape NATO’s early views on WPS and gender
perspectives as operational assets.12 Despite Sweden’s nonalignment stance at the time, it deepened its partnership with
NATO through WPS, notably supporting gender integration in
Afghanistan and providing diplomatic backing for NATO’s WPS
efforts, such as at the 2012 Chicago Summit.13
However, Sweden’s case also reveals WPS’ vulnerability
within NATO. While WPS was central to the NATO-Sweden
partnership, any mention of it was omitted when Sweden began
formal NATO membership talks. This suggests that Sweden’s
Feminist Foreign Policy—an approach it pioneered and which
became a core aspect of its international stance, conflicted with
its NATO aspirations.14
Beyond Sweden, NATO partnerships have played an integral
role in the Alliance’s understanding of WPS, with initial NATO
WPS policies adopted jointly by the Euro-Atlantic Partnership
Council (EAPC).15 The agenda has thus provided “added value”
for NATO by providing a “safe” non-contentious issue and
diplomatic tool for NATO to build relationships with partners
whose interests might usually differ. For example, Austria proved
critical in supporting NATO’s adoption of a policy on WPS in
Japan, set geopolitically apart from NATO but increasingly
important for a potential pivot to the Indo-Pacific, initially built
its partnership with NATO on WPS, providing a Voluntary
National Contribution to NATO HQ to support NATO’s WPS
work in 2015 for two years.
Another area in which WPS has run counter to “business
as usual” at NATO, though again has added value, is with
respect to the role of civil society and promoting the Alliance’s
image in global politics. At a national level, and indeed at the
European Union level, civil society as knowledge brokers of
WPS have been heavily involved in developing WPS policies.
As a defense Alliance, such policy consultation requires a level
of transparency and openness that NATO did not engage in, in any policy area.16 Likewise, many civil society advocates of
WPS with roots in pacifism remained skeptical of NATO’s
engagement with WPS; consequently, there was no civil society
lobbying for NATO to engage with WPS at the time. Therefore,
NATO remained one of the exceptions among actors—states
and international organizations, implementing WPS only in
2014 and establishing a mechanism for formally consulting civil
society in the WPS policy-making process for the first time.
This has not been without challenges, but it represented a
significant commitment to open NATO’s WPS work to outside
scrutiny and a recognition that such consultation can strengthen
NATO’s policy.17
Institutional Drivers and Leadership on
WPS at NATO
On the political side, the creation of the Secretary General’s
Special Representative (SGSR) on the WPS position in 2012
has provided important impetus for NATO’s WPS work and has
been recognized by the UN as an example of best practices given
the high-level reporting of the role.18 Yet, the establishment of
the position was far from a done deal prior to the 2012 Chicago
Summit, and it took some NATO officials by surprise.19 Norway
offered to fill in the role from 2012-2014. At this time, institutional
challenges remained to fulfilling the SGSR’s mandate, including
the position within the NATO structure and rank. This was a
topic for discussion from 2014 to 2017, with the Netherlands
putting forward and sponsoring an ambassador for the position.
The high-level SGSR has successfully raised awareness of NATO’s
WPS work externally and taken the lead on WPS development
internally.20
The SGSR is now recruited via the regular NATO recruitment
process, which has meant bringing the funding for it “in-house”
from the civil budget. As part of the Office of the Secretary
General, this reflects progress on the WPS agenda at NATO.
The open competition also brings the process in line with the
recruitment for Assistant Secretary General positions, even if
certain Allies still dominate particular portfolios here, bringing
into question how “open” such competition is.21 In practice, most
Allies with a WPS National Action Plan have seen the benefit of
promoting the agenda as a foreign policy tool to support their
wider influence, including at NATO, so it remains a politically
lucrative position for Allies to secure.22
The SGSR on WPS remains the main point of accountability for
implementing WPS at NATO, as outlined in the current Action
Plan. However, the WPS agenda also spans across the areas of
responsibility of several Assistant Secretary Generals (ASGs),
from Innovation, Hybrid and Cyber to Defence Policy and
Planning and Operations and Public Diplomacy. Various WPSrelated initiatives have emerged from these ASGs, most recently,
a Public Diplomacy campaign to counter gender disinformation
on social media.23 That withstanding, to fully achieve the genderresponsive leadership committed to in NATO’s WPS Policy, and
to prevent the agenda from being siloed on the political side
or solely managed by the SGSR and their office, there is a need
for each ASG to have specific actions in the upcoming Action
Plan. In this way, each ASG will share accountability for the
implementation of the WPS agenda, even if the SGSR remains
the driver and a crucial guide for coherent WPS implementation
at NATO.
On the military side, the NATO Committee on Gender
Perspectives (NCGP) serves as a prime example of the critical
role institutional drivers play in successfully implementing the
WPS agenda within NATO. As an advisory body to the Military
Committee (MC), the NCGP has been at the forefront of
institutionalizing gender perspectives and operationalizing the
NATO WPS policies.24
It began back in the 1960s, exploring every avenue through
which women could make the fullest possible contribution to
NATO by serving in their national armed forces. Its efforts led to
the establishment of the International Military Staff (IMS) Office
of the Gender Advisor (GENAD) in 1998. Its role has expanded
in recent years and now also supports the implementation of
WPS and the integration of a gender perspective within the
IMS, marking a significant milestone in institutionalizing
gender perspectives.25 Since 2005, it has actively championed
the creation of a Military Committee policy document on
gender perspectives within NATO, a long-fought goal that was
realized in the adoption of the NATO WPS policy last year. This
achievement underscores decades of persistent advocacy to fully
integrate a gender perspective into NATO’s activities, missions,
and operations.
However, for the military, there are additional practical challenges
in implementing WPS and incorporating a gender perspective,
with the primary issue being inadequate resourcing. Gender
Advisors (GENADs) positioned throughout NATO, including
within the International Military Staff and Strategic Commands, are understaffed and, therefore, unable to fully meet the political
ambitions of the WPS agenda.
Putting WPS Into Practice Through the
Revised NATO Action Plan
WPS remained on the margins of NATO’s core business,
although, as demonstrated here, it has provided significant value
to the Alliance in several areas. Its elevation to a deliverable
of the Strategic Concept and the revised NATO WPS Policy
providing a strategic vision to the agenda indicates a novel phase
in NATO’s engagement and an attempt to make WPS part of the
Alliance’s core business.
The Strategic Concept states that NATO “will promote good
governance and integrate climate change, human security, and
the Women, Peace, and Security agenda across all our tasks. We
will continue to advance gender equality as a reflection of our
values.”26 While the inclusion of WPS is significant though not
guaranteed, how it has been framed in the Strategic Concept
affects how WPS will be understood within NATO moving
forward. So far, the implementation of the WPS agenda and a
gender perspective have added value to NATO, particularly by
improving operational effectiveness and supporting women in
NATO forces.27 As the Secretary General has stated, integrating a
gender perspective is “not only the right thing to do but the smart
thing to do.”28 The absence of WPS in the Strategic Concept’s
sections on Deterrence and Defence, as well as Crisis Prevention
and Management, is significant since the document guides the
entire Alliance. The updated NATO WPS Policy addresses this
gap by aligning it with NATO’s core tasks and the four pillars
of the WPS agenda. However, the Strategic Concept missed the
opportunity to include this directly, meaning those not fully
convinced of WPS’s importance would need to consult the WPS
Policy separately to understand its relevance.
Crucially, the NATO Policy on WPS introduces the concept
of gender-responsive leadership “to ensure NATO leaders
strengthen their gender expertise, work towards gender equality
and are accountable for the implementation of the WPS
Agenda.”29 Such an approach will be key to realizing an effective
WPS agenda at NATO and should be integrated into the Action
Plan. It should start from the top down, with the Secretary
General mainstreaming WPS into public-facing remarks as a
matter of course, not as an exception. In addition, and as outlined
earlier, clear lines of reporting on WPS should be identified for
all the Assistant Secretary Generals’ portfolios. This will help
address the weaknesses in WPS in the Strategic Concept and
draw attention to the importance of NATO’s revised WPS Policy,
which is by far the most comprehensive policy to date and sets an
ambitious agenda for the Alliance.
At present, there is value in ensuring the integration of a gender
perspective is reflective of NATO’s WPS priorities and moving
beyond the institutional siloing of this topic to ensure the whole
of NATO is committed to its implementation across political
and military structures. Establishing the SGSR WPS position
has been fundamental to moving this agenda forward, as well as
approving the latest NATO WPS Policy, which has provided an
overarching strategic vision. But now it needs to be translated
into practice via the Action Plan, and a crucial part of this will be
the actions of NATO leadership across the political and military
structures.
To summarize, advancements in the integration of a gender
perspective in NATO are tempered by remaining challenges. The
inclusion of WPS in the Strategic Concept is highly significant.
However, while it is referenced in relation to all of NATO’s tasks,
it is specifically mentioned only in the context of Cooperative
Security, with no direct mention in the sections of the other
core tasks (on Deterrence and Defence or Crisis Prevention and
Management). This deficiency should be addressed. Secondly,
as the revised NATO Policy on WPS (2024) draws attention to,
translating the policy commitment of WPS into practice must
emphasize WPS’ added value to NATO, including promoting
gender-responsive leadership by establishing clear accountability
for the Assistant Secretary Generals and their portfolios in
mainstreaming WPS across all NATO activities. Finally, it is
essential to draw on the expertise of the Civil Society Advisory
Panel (CSAP) on WPS and the NATO Committee on Gender
Perspectives (NCGP).
Futureproofing WPS at NATO
As NATO’s engagement with WPS to date has demonstrated, this
is a policy area ripe for innovation that adds considerable value
to the Alliance at all levels. The next step in supporting NATO’s
WPS commitments is to translate Strategic Concept statements
and NATO WPS policy commitments into practice through the
development of an effective WPS Action Plan. In this regard, four steps would contribute towards NATO’s
efforts to put WPS into practice in developing the new NATO
WPS Action Plan, which would center on the added value of
WPS for the Alliance.
The Secretary General and NATO’s senior leadership should
integrate WPS into their public-facing remarks as a matter of
routine, given the demonstrated applicability of the agenda to
all of NATO’s tasks.
Align efforts with the strategic vision that prioritizes
gender-responsive leadership and ensures accountability in
implementing WPS across NATO’s political and military
structures.
NATO’s political and military structures should better leverage
the expertise of the NATO Civil Society Advisory Panel on
WPS and NCGP, respectively, using it as a resource to support
gender-responsive leadership in their work.
Ensure that policy commitments are translated into concrete
actions by providing the NATO Military Authorities with
adequate resources—especially in terms of human resources
and dedicated gender structures—to implement these
initiatives effectively.