Report of the Secretary-General on Women and Peace and Security (S/2021/827)
Publisher: UN SC
Date: 2021
Topics: Conflict Prevention, Gender, Peace and Security Operations, Programming
1. The present report is prepared pursuant to the presidential statement dated 26 October 2010 (S/PRST/2010/22), in which the Security Council requested annual reports on the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000); resolution 2122 (2013), which called for updates of progress across all areas of the women, peace and security agenda, highlighting gaps and challenges; and resolution 2493 (2019), which called for reinforced measures to implement the agenda in full. It follows up on the Secretary-General’s directives to the United Nations and the five goals for the decade laid out in the reports of the Secretary-General on women and peace and security from 2019 and 2020, paying special attention to the goal of reversing the upward trajectory in global military spending with a view to encouraging greater investment in the social infrastructure and services that buttress human security.
2. In October 2020, the international community commemorated the twentieth anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women and peace and security in hundreds of mostly virtual events throughout the world. By then, the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on both international peace and security and on gender equality was already devastating and projected to worsen. A year later, these forecasts have largely been proven right. For example, 100 million people now experience food insecurity because of conflict, compared with 77 million only a year ago. By the end of 2020 the number of people forcibly displaced owing to conflict, humanitarian crises, persecution, violence and human rights violations had grown to 82.4 million, the highest number on record and more than double the level of a decade ago.
3. Meanwhile, even though the response to the COVID-19 pandemic added to the evidence of the effectiveness of women’s leadership at the highest levels, women continued to be underrepresented in that response and in other decision-making forums, pushed out of the workforce and subjected to a surge of violence across the world as soon as lock-downs and quarantines were put into effect. This marginalization has a negative impact on crisis prevention and recovery and on international peace and security in general. Nearly a hundred studies indicate some type of link between sex and gender inequality and violent outcomes.