25 years ago the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda was adopted, following decades of feminist organising from communities affected by conflict demanding power, protection, participation, peace and security. Now the WPS agenda stands at a critical crossroads, particularly in the South West Asia region. How can the WPS agenda be reimagined, re-understood, and reapplied in a region scorched by settler colonialism, authoritarian collapse, and military occupation, while funding for WPS has diminished so substantially? Key answer – by adding Accountability as a fifth pillar.
This Returning to the Radical Roots report unpacks the WPS trajectory in the South West Asia (SWA) region – amid genocide, escalating violence and shrinking civic space due to authoritarian backlash and donor-driven technocratic containment. The report is based on physical gatherings of over 50 feminist peacebuilders from Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen and research with 147 interviewees highlighting that in the face of violent onslaught, feminist peace actors have redoubled their resolve and continue to resist erasure and exclusion from decision-making processes, often at great personal risk.
This Returning to the Radical Roots report rightfully questions whose knowledge and agency are being privileged in the translation of the WPS agenda into policy and practice, and challenges the narrowing of feminist language under donor compliance and securitised frameworks. The research elevates visionary practices – shadow action plans, legal reforms, care networks, and transnational coalitions – as the real blueprint for peace and justice. It urges movement actors, donors, policymakers, and advocates to recognise that inclusive and sustainable peace is unattainable without confronting root causes such as settler colonialism, militarisation, and the erasure of feminist knowledge, by centering those most affected in future proofing the WPS agenda – from the ground up.
As PAX aims to #ReclaimWPS25, the report has been discussed by frontline feminist peace activists with leading diplomatic actors in interconnected WPS-events in Amman (6-10 October) and Nairobi (22-23 October), and will form the basis for closed door policy discussions in New York (29 and 30 October) and Brussels (5 November) co-organized by PAX.
The WPS agenda was, and remains, a call to action. Rather than adapting to existing power structures, this report calls for an unequivocal return to radical feminist praxis and support thereof, with accountability as a new foundational pillar.
