As the Women, Peace and Security agenda loses ground to a global gender backlash, ASEAN is quietly building it out. Whether that institutional momentum amounts to anything depends on whether the region’s civil society organisations are treated as partners or as an afterthought. For WPS to work, it needs local ownership.
The WPS agenda is commonly recognised as the most significant international normative framework seeking to address the gendered impacts of conflict and insecurity on women and girls, while acknowledging the contributions they have always made to peace and security.
The agenda has existed since the year 2000 as a formal framework, however Southeast Asia has had a relatively latent engagement with WPS. This is despite its relevance in the region, where women face insecurities ranging from various armed conflicts, to climate change-related displacement and human trafficking. Until recently, ASEAN did not have regional frameworks specifically focused on addressing the insecurities faced by women in conflict and post-conflict situations.
From International Norms to ASEAN Framework
In recent years, there have been a few frameworks created for the WPS agenda, including the 2017 Joint Statement on Promoting Women, Peace and Security in ASEAN developed by key peace, security and gender equality actors within ASEAN. There is also a dedicated website for WPS in the region, alongside the ASEAN Women for Peace Registry which are both regularly updated.
Perhaps the clearest example of ASEAN developing its WPS agenda, however, is the ASEAN Regional Plan of Action on Women, Peace and Security (RAP-WPS) launched in 2022. A major aim of ASEAN’s RPA-WPS is to support member states in localising WPS at a country level, particularly through the development of National Action Plans – national level documents that outline how a country will implement the WPS agenda in locally relevant ways. This aim has been at least partially successful, with Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia all adopting National Action Plans since 2022, indicating the regional bloc has set a precedent for its member states to localise and formulate relevant national approaches to WPS. In this respect, the RAP-WPS provides a broad policy framework to guide regional members. But the model it provides could be improved.
Prioritising Civil Society
ASEAN’s approach is largely technocratic and institutional, which is risky because the agenda is known to be more successful when there is ownership from local actors – specifically women’s organisations. Women’s organisations are often operated by women with lived experience of insecurity, or they work directly with communities where insecurity is actively unfolding. For this reason, they are uniquely situated to comment on where resources should be directed, what interventions will and will not work, and how WPS is best positioned to support those living in precarious security situations. Consultation is one place where this intelligence can be transmitted to policymakers, but women’s organisations also help keep governments to account in terms of implementing and keeping to their promises in National Action Plans.
The Southeast Asia region has a history of women’s organisations taking part and even precipitating action on WPS. In Indonesia and the Philippines, for instance, it was the work of women’s civil society that helped to push government into adopting WPS approaches in various security initiatives and National Action Plans, via their advocacy work. When WPS approaches are top-down and do not involve these groups, the results are usually lacklustre because the WPS agenda ends up not addressing the pressing security concerns that women experience at an everyday level. Without sufficient ownership by women’s groups, it’s also unlikely civil society will be incentivised to hold governments to account for implementing WPS meaningfully.
With ASEAN providing something of a blueprint for how member states ought to adopt National Action Plans and localise WPS in the region through the RPA-WPS, there is a risk women’s organisations aren’t acknowledged as a crucial ingredient for making WPS work at national levels either. The RAP-WPS credits the role of civil society in building a framework that is robust, but the document only mentions civil society eight times in its various priority areas. Academics and practitioners working on WPS also note that civil society is sidelined at regional summits on WPS, with most events focusing exclusively on the institutional experiences and best practice at regional and national levels, instead of focusing on groups who work directly with women experiencing insecurity.
Final Remarks
ASEAN’s WPS approach is consistent with its approach to other human rights frameworks, where the focus is on information sharing and training. It may be that ASEAN’s institutional culture is best placed to simply elevate the idea of the WPS agenda amongst member states. At the same time, ASEAN should make space for women’s organisations besides lip service statements – a summit focused exclusively on civil society experiences with WPS is one place to start.
Serena Nardi Ford is a PhD Candidate at the Global Peace and Security Centre and the Herb Feith Indonesia Engagement Centre at Monash University. She is also an affiliate at the Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW) and was a Euan Crone Scholar with the AIIA in 2024.
This article is published under Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.
