Introduction: Female Leadership in Policy and Security

Time Magazine has deemed 2024 “the election year” with nearly 49 percent of the global population heading to the polls.i This year has already seen notable advances for women. Namely, Claudia Sheinbaum being elected Mexico’s first female president. However, a Guardian analysis reveals that among the 42 presidential and parliamentary elections this year, only 18 feature female candidates, and only a “handful” have a realistic chance of winning.ii In three of the world's largest democracies— the US, Indonesia, and India— there are no female frontrunners this year.iii

Gender disparities also persist in security and peacebuilding leadership. In the EU, only seven of the 27 member states have female defense ministers, less than 20 percent of senior executives in EU security agencies are women, and only one-third of migration and border control ministers are female. In NATO, women make up less than 20 percent of the full-time armed forces and hold only 21 percent of senior positions as of 2022. Globally, only 13 percent of defense ministers are females. Similar gaps are evident in UN peacekeeping roles and leadership positions within the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.iv

Avenues for Change?

Efforts have been made to bring more women to the forefront of decision-making and peacebuilding. In 2005, the UN Secretary General Special Report initiated the creation of National Action Plans (NAPs) promoting Women, Peace and Security (WPS). All countries were called on to detail their commitments to implementing the UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, which reaffirms

the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction and stresses the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.v

Moreover, UNSCR 1325 urged all UN actors to “increase female participation and incorporate a gender perspective into UN peace and security efforts.”vi Implementation of NAPs details the country-specific ways of implementing the WPS agenda, promoting and implementing female participation in decision-making, peace-building, and peacekeeping.
So far, 107 governments have adopted NAPs, pledging their commitment to implement WPS agendas. As of 2024, 55 percent of all UN members have published WPS NAPs, with 36 percent of NAPs including an allocated budget.1 Although these statistics reveal progress, work remains to be done to implementing these Action Plans and ensuring that more countries have contextualized frameworks for promoting female leadership.

i Koh Ewe, “The Ultimate Election Year: All the Election Around the World in 2024,” TIME, December 28,
2023, https://time.com/6550920/world-elections-2024/.
ii Jonathan Yerushalmy and Ashifa Kassam, “More people will vote in 2024 than ever before … but where are
the female candidates?” Guardian, 22 April 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/22/globalelections-
2024-women-female-candidates.
iii Ibid.
iv CPF, “Women at Work,” Casimir Pulaski Foundation, May 29, 2024, https://pulaski.pl/en/women-at-work/.
v United Nations, “Landmark resolution on Women, Peace and Security,” OSAGI, 2000,
https://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/wps/.
vi Ibid.