Globalising Women, Peace and Security: Trends in National Action Plans

The United Nations (UN) has proposed multiple strategies for addressing deficits in the implementation of its women, peace and security (WPS) resolutions. National Action Plans (NAPs) have gained huge traction and popularity, yet there has been little critical assessment of how they have advanced the WPS agenda overall. This paper assesses a number of key trends: first, the purchase that NAPs have attempted to gain at macro-structural levels within the UN's political arena; second, the procedural modalities that have come to determine how the WPS resolutions are translated into NAPs at meso-levels across Member States; and third, the kinds of substantive focus found at micro-levels within adopted NAPs. The peripheral activities on WPS by related UN and civil society entities are also explored. It emerges that, while many practical gains have been made, NAPs-WPS remain insecure in their political positioning and are not yet fully realising their potential to deliver on women's rights.