In 2017, the United States Government passed the Women, Peace and Security Act (WPS Act) to improve the participation of women in peace and security processes, conflict prevention, peace building, and decision-making institutions. The majority of peace agreements signed from 1990 to today have included zero female signatories as peace negotiators continue overlook a strategy that could drastically reduce conflict and advance stability: include women. The participation of civil society groups, including women’s organizations, makes a peace agreement 64% less likely to fail and when women directly participate in peace processes, the resulting agreement is 35% more likely to last at least 15 years.

Reflecting this commitment, the McCain Institute has partnered with Our Secure Future to launch a program which will lead and organize a series of activities in Washington D.C. that advance the U.S. government’s work on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. The outcomes of this partnership will be:

  • Broader US support for, understanding, and implementation of the WPS Act
  • More strategic that partners support the implementation of the WPS Act
  • More effective US policy and programmatic leadership for the WPS agenda from both inside and out the U.S. government.

To date, the Women, Peace and Security Initiative has hosted conversations on the following topics: