GAPS Secretariat Statement: Government Response to International Development Committee Report on Women, Peace and Security

In March 2026, the International Development Committee (IDC) published its report ‘Peace under pressure: Protecting Women, Peace and Security’. On the 10th of June 2026, the Government’s response to the report was published. 

The report was a welcome intervention that reflected a number of longstanding proposals made by GAPS. The assessment of the UK’s implementation of WPS made in the report was sobering but correct, finding progress on WPS lagging, and that commitments under the UK WPS National Action Plan (NAP) ‘have not been upheld’.

Responding to the Committee report was an opportunity for the Government to show how it will reinvigorate progress on the WPS agenda. Instead, it failed to meaningfully engage with the Committee’s recommendations, relied heavily on references to previous work, and gave little practical detail on future action.  

At a time when violent conflict is increasing and rollback against gender equality grows, the Government’s response was disappointing and adds to the growing sense that it is stuck in a state of inaction regarding delivery on WPS. 

In March, the Foreign Secretary announced that women and girls would be a priority for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). Implementing existing WPS commitments is a key opportunity to provide clarity on how it would translate bold commitments into action. This report was a moment to show how this could be done, but it represents another missed opportunity to move from rhetoric to delivery.

Civil society organisations, including GAPS and its members, want to see the UK live up to its rhetorical commitments on WPS and are eager to support next steps. The WPS agenda is being neglected and the Government must urgently re-engage with civil society meaningfully to progress the UK movement on WPS before decades of effort is lost. 

In the first instance, we urge the Government to: 

• Provide an update and timeline on the NAP refresh and share what planning is in place for the new NAP, given we are nearing the end of the current NAP period;

• Provide detail on finalised decisions regarding individual programme spend, including what the totality of spend will be for WPS and outline how WPS will be reflected in the new women and girls priority;

• Ensure that individual programme spend is channeled toward providing long-term, flexible and core funds for women-led civil society and women's-rights organisations; 

• Detail how gender mainstreaming commitments will be delivered through financial resources and staffing capacity and expertise, including the potential for assigned leaders accountable for mainstreaming WPS; 

• Outline what monitoring, evaluation and accountability mechanisms will be developed to track delivery on the NAP refresh, and future NAP.