How to advance the WPS agenda together with women's networks and rights organisations: learning from Resourcing Change 

The 25th anniversary year of the United Nation's Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in 2025 has been marked by a deep sense of frustration and concern. The ambitions of the WPS agenda remain constrained by fragmented implementation and limited support for women's rights organisations (WROs), alongside a larger global rollback on gender equality and an increasingly powerful anti-rights agenda. Amid this, it is outcomes from projects like Resourcing Change which provided flexible, core funding to WROs, recognising their role as peacebuilders that provide a useful counterpoint and show the resilience of the women's and peacebuilding movements. Rooted in their communities, these organisations lead work that drives locally owned and lasting change.

Too often, the voices and perspectives of WROs and women's networks are sidelined, undermined or undervalued. This brief explainer draws on findings from the latest learning paper from the Resourcing Change project to explore how women leaders and their organisations in fragile and conflict-affected contexts are advancing the WPS agenda in practice and how international partners and donors can better stand in solidarity (both politically and in terms of resources) with them. The experiences shared highlight practical ways to bridge siloes, broaden and strengthen the WPS agenda, and sustain women's leadership and agency in these contexts.

Bridge the siloes of the WPS pillars

Resourcing Change partners played a pivotal role in implementing across the WPS agenda's four pillars, participation, prevention, protection, and relief and recovery  by adopting holistic, context-driven approaches. These organisations designed and implemented initiatives that simultaneously advanced multiple WPS pillars, reflecting the complex realities and priorities of women in their communities. For example, in South Sudan, women-led peacebuilding efforts not only promoted women's participation and leadership in inter-tribal dialogues, but also contributed to conflict prevention and stronger protection by resolving conflicts at water points and securing community agreements for peaceful resource sharing.

Broaden the WPS agenda

By centring partners' self-identified locally-led priorities, flexible and core funding broadened the scope of the WPS agenda, from linking women's economic empowerment and access to education to WPS to tackling online harassment and digital safety as well as bringing mental health and psychological well-being to the fore. For example, Resourcing Change partners' experiences underscore how living, surviving and leading in their contexts takes a significant psychological toll, with women leaders facing burnout and lasting trauma. By advocating for the integration of mental health support in the WPS agenda, WROs contribute vital perspectives that challenge traditional definitions of security and emphasise holistic well-being as central to sustainable peace.

Engage with a long-term vision

Providing core, flexible funding to WROs has been critical because it allows them to allocate resources to their identified priorities to address root causes of conflict and insecurity. When WROs have consistent flexible resources, they can anchor long-term, community-rooted work from shaping local protection mechanisms to influencing legal and policy reforms. Resourcing WROs in these ways supports grassroots women's groups to identify local and emerging needs and mobilise community action, leading to transformative shifts in attitudes and harmful norms, while strengthening accountability mechanisms.

The advocacy by WROs^[1] and women led initiatives has resulted in substantial policy achievements. For instance, these efforts led to led to the development of GBV desks at markets in communities in Nigeria; the establishment of a cyber security unit in Yemen and the appointment of women chiefs to mediate conflicts in South Sudan. Sustained core and flexible funding gives WROs the stability and autonomy required to advance the WPS agenda in meaningful and lasting ways.

Engage with the most vulnerable

Flexible and core funding to WROs and women-led initiatives at the local level has been instrumental in directing more attention and resources to the most vulnerable and marginalised community members over the long term, building broader community networks and resilience. This approach has enabled local organisations to reach displaced women, survivors of violence, and those living in extreme poverty, ensuring they are not left behind in peacebuilding and recovery processes. Evidence from Yemen demonstrates that when WROs receive flexible funding, they embody solidarity principles - often using funds to support other grassroots groups, foster collaboration, and create sustainable networks. Examples of this include the Basmat Hayat Foundation's efforts to build a network that amplifies the voices and needs of marginalised women and girls.

Supporting WROs requires political consistency - not just funding

Supporting WROs in fragile contexts requires more than flexible funding, it also requires bold leadership, consistent political commitment and action, and alignment with the principles of the WPS agenda across domestic and foreign policy. WROs repeatedly point out that donor governments are not neutral stakeholders – and a lack of policy consistency serves to undermine their effectiveness in supporting the WPS agenda and the transformative vision for peace at its core. For instance, states that supply arms to parties in conflicts where women and children are most affected. Or governments who are promoting WPS internationally, but that are enacting restrictive, racialised immigration policies that force women fleeing violence into underground, unsafe pathways. Likewise, many donors still operate within top-down aid systems that define whose expertise counts and whose priorities deserve funding. Despite commitments to 'localisation', in practice, local organisations are often not viewed as equal players. This undermines the creation of an enabling environment for WROs to lead the work and directly access funding.

How to best support women-led groups in FCAS

Supporting WROs in fragile contexts requires effective funding models, but also a principled, holistic and trust-based approach that centres women's voices, expertise and lived realities:

• Living principled partnership: True funding partnership must be built in an equal model with donors and INGOs taking a back seat for women to lead and shifting the power dynamics that limit their agency. By intentionally acknowledging imbalanced power dynamics, donors and allies can contribute to dismantling systemic barriers, centering women's agency and amplifying the voices of the most marginalised. Trust-based funding, grounded in solidarity, decolonial principles, political allyship and meaningful engagement, recognises that WROs and women leaders are best positioned to identify and address their communities' needs and invest in collective well-being. This approach is not simply about 'trusting partners' - it is about resourcing them as political actors, acknowledging their leadership in shaping peace, protection and justice and creating the enabling conditions for sustained, autonomous organising.

• Creating conditions for meaningful participation and leadership: Effective support goes beyond leadership training. It means addressing both the visible and invisible barriers women face – poverty, insecurity, discrimination and lack of confidence – while engaging families and communities to shift harmful norms. Providing support in formats women want, whether this takes the form of practical assistance or skills-building, creates an enabling environment for genuine participation and leadership.

• Holistic accompaniment and comprehensive support: Flexible and long-term core funding must be paired with tailored accompaniment and support, organisational strengthening peer-learning and strategising opportunities. Investing in local expertise and networks fosters collaboration, resilience and a stronger collective voice on WPS issues.

• Slow, contextual and incremental growth: Lasting change is rooted in trusting the agency of women and supporting their priorities at a pace that makes sense locally. Rather than externally imposed timelines or pressure to "scale" prematurely. donors should embrace incremental growth, allowing organisations to find relevant opportunities, build movements, and remain agile and effective in advancing the WPS agenda.

• Political commitments: Donor leadership is badly needed to demonstrate strong political commitment to advancing WPS, stand up against the rollback on gender and women's rights, and advance foreign and domestic policies that are consistent with supporting transformative peace.

• Resourcing commitments: Provide long-term, feminist, flexible funding that recognises WROs as political actors and leaders of peace and protection not as subcontractors.

The most effective way to support WROs in conflict-affected contexts is to invest in principled partnerships, create enabling conditions for participation, provide comprehensive and flexible support, and trust women to lead change on their own terms. This approach not only strengthens organisations and contributes to movement building (critical at a moment of backlash on peace and justice) but also lays the foundation for inclusive, resilient and sustainable peace.