Deputy Secretary-General's remarks to the High-Level event on the Secretary-General's Common Pledge for Women's Full, Equal and Meaningful Participation in the Peace Processes

Excellencies,
Colleagues,
Friends,

It is an honour to open this High-Level Event on behalf of the Secretary-General.

We gather at a moment of reckoning for women’s rights and for peace itself. Across every region, the space for women’s voices is shrinking while the violence around them grows.

In Gaza, Sudan, Haiti, and Ukraine, women are burying their loved ones and holding families together through unthinkable loss. Yet, when the time comes to negotiate peace, they are pushed to the margins and watching others decide their future.

Last year, almost half of those killed in conflict were women.

Fewer than one in ten negotiators were women.

We know the evidence. When women are part of peace talks, the agreements reached are stronger, fairer, and more likely to last. Women know what is at stake because they live the consequences of war every day in their homes and in their communities, and they bring those voices to the table.

Yet, those voices are often ignored.

Security Council resolution 1325, adopted under Namibia's presidency of the council, was a breakthrough that set the bar for inclusive peace, was a promise to dismantle inequality and build peace with women’s leadership at its core.

Almost twenty-five years later, that promise is under threat. Between 1992 and 2019, women made up just 13 percent of negotiators in peace processes.

By 2024, that number had dropped to 7 percent. Even in UN-led processes, where representation has more than doubled, women still make up only 19 percent of participants.

These numbers speak for themselves and they reveal the same pattern we have seen for decades: when conflicts erupt, women bear the greatest cost; when peace talks begin, they are the first to be left behind.

We cannot claim surprise, we can only claim responsibility, because exclusion like this is not by accident, it is by design.

It is the result of systems that see peace as the absence of gunfire rather than the rebuilding of lives.

It is what happens when negotiations become deals among elites instead of solutions for people.

Yes, peace must begin with silencing the guns. But sustaining peace requires that women help design the ceasefires, shape the negotiations, and lead the transitions, rebuilding and healing that follows. As we all know, that means putting women directly at the decision-making table.

That is the purpose of the Secretary-General’s Common Pledge. It calls on mediators to act, not just to promise, but advance women’s participation in the peace processes they lead.

To date, over forty mediating actors, Member States, regional and civil society organizations, have joined the Pledge, and each has committed to four concrete actions:

First, advocate for women’s direct participation in negotiating delegations, with clear targets;

Second, consult regularly with women from diverse backgrounds and women-led civil society;

Third, embed gender expertise to shape peace agreements;

And fourth appoint women as lead mediators.

These commitments are practical steps that can be taken today, and they are already making a difference where decisions are taken.

In Libya, the United Nations mission this month set a minimum target of 35 percent women’s participation in the structured dialogue advancing the Libyan Political Roadmap. It also established a Libyan Women’s Caucus to ensure women are represented at every stage of the process.

In the Great Lakes region, joint UN and African Union advocacy helped secure the appointment of two former women Heads of State to the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Again, these are straightforward, practical steps that are possible when leadership is intentional and when mediators choose inclusion as a standard practice.

At the United Nations, we are determined to lead by example. In 2024, four out of five UN-led peace processes were headed by women. Women made up 45 percent of our mediation teams. The Secretary-General has also committed to advocating for at least one-third women in mediation delegations, with a clear goal of full parity.

CEDAW’s General Recommendation 40 reinforces this call. It urges States to advance parity in peace and security processes, including in mediation contexts.

Yet including women in conflict party delegations remains a key challenge. In today’s evolving global mediation landscape, the UN alone cannot create the change we need. Member States, regional organizations and other actors increasingly lead mediation processes.

We look to you to join us in taking these same concrete actions and advancing multi-track strategies for inclusive and lasting peace.

That work is already being led by women on the frontlines of peace.

Today we will hear from women who have shaped peace processes as negotiators, mediators, and leaders in civil society. Their experience is the foundation of this agenda.

To all partners who have joined the Common Pledge, I thank you. Your leadership is turning commitments into results. Let us now widen this coalition, deepen its actions, and ensure that progress is visible where it matters most: in the text of agreements and in the lives of those who depend on them.

From this day forward, let us set a clear standard. Every mediation team should advocate for, resource, and deliver women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation.

I believe that together we can lead by example and deliver peace that endures in the lives of people everywhere.

Thank you.