GAPS Response to the International Development Committee Report on Women, Peace and Security
On Monday 23 March 2026, the International Development Committee published its report ‘Peace under pressure: Protecting Women, Peace and Security’. The report follows the Committee’s inquiry into Women, Peace and Security (WPS), to which GAPS provided both oral and written evidence. We welcome the publication of the Committee’s findings, which reflect a number of longstanding proposals and recommendations made by GAPS. Read our full statement below:
Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS) welcomes the publication today, Monday 23 March, of the International Development Committee (IDC) report on protecting the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. The Committee has taken evidence from dozens of experts and from civil servants and Ministers to assess the UK Government’s progress in delivering on its promises. The report could not be more timely, as conflict rapidly escalates across the Middle East, triggered by the US-Israeli war of aggression on Iran, and as the international community meanwhile struggles to respond to multiple major conflicts and spreading insecurity, just as massive funding cuts to the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) bite.
In reviewing the last years, the IDC finds that the important commitments made in the current UK National Action Plan (NAP) “have not been upheld” and concludes that the Government has stood “idly by whilst hard-won gains in global gender equality are lost”. These are strong words, but the Committee is right. Its findings confirm warnings made by GAPS and others in the last years that not enough was being done to protect gains and to ensure that words were translated into action. The Government is not just a bystander to the rollback of women’s rights globally, but in pushing through huge cuts to the overseas development budget – to a degree greater even than those eventually imposed in the United States – has been an active agent in weakening efforts towards gender equality.
The Committee recognises that political will has been “waning” and we welcome its effort to revive WPS. This is a moment of profound opportunity. Just last week the Foreign Secretary’s announced her priorities for aid, and that women and girls would be one of the core priorities for the FCDO, with the promise of protected funding over the coming years for programming to tackle violence against women and girls, the WPS agenda, and the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI). GAPS welcomes this change in approach and looks forward to working closely with the Government to renew its ambition.
However, the situation for WPS remains precarious. Protecting slices of a radically shrinking budget is not efficiency; it undermines progress, weakens protection, and reduces the UK’s ability to respond to insecurity. The Government’s own Equality Impact Assessment confirms that these reductions will have negative consequences, while leaving significant gaps in understanding how women and girls will be affected in practice. And as the Committee observes, maintaining current spending “does not negate nor improve the impact of funding cuts thus far”.
In its first years in office in a generation, and despite bold words on international cooperation, the Committee is right that the Government has so far shown an “unwillingness” to lead in multilateral spaces, precisely at the moment where it is most important that powerful states defend gender equality from backlash and neglect. GAPS note the Committee’s attention to the UK’s convening power at the United Nations and the prospects for more active efforts at an alliance for WPS.
We urge the Government to use the NAP ‘refresh’ that is currently underway to implement the Committee’s recommendations, many of which reflect longstanding proposals made by GAPS. In particular we highlight the following:
Strengthen cross-government coordination and leadership to ensure WPS is embedded across diplomacy, defence and development, rather than treated as a siloed agenda.
Rebuild monitoring, evaluation and accountability mechanisms, including a cross-overnment framework. We encourage the Government to work more closely with civil society and WPS practitioners, including academics, to measure the effectiveness of UK policy. The Government should fully adopt the committee’s recommendation of a cross-government monitoring framework and a biennial review mechanism. We agree that the annual report to Parliament should be reinstituted and that the Government must develop an operational Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning framework with clear data on spend and impact.
Ensure Funding commitments are tied to clear, strategic plans. We welcome the Committee’s recommendations that spending be tied to clear strategic plans, developed with proper engagement.
Support the Women, Peace and Security Bill.The Committee notes that the Government has so far not supported the Women, Peace and Security Bill that is still awaiting debate in the House of Commons. A strengthened version of the Bill in consultation with civil society could enhance programming, monitoring, evaluation and accountability, and we urge the Government to reconsider its opposition.
Reconsideration of the 0.3 Gross National Income (GNI) target. The Committee recognises the damage already done by the cuts, and we urge a reconsideration of the 0.3 GNI target for aid. Only when gender equality is properly resourced will the UK be able to adequately respond to the full range of insecurity faced by women globally