ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the evolution of what the international community has come to call the "women, peace, and security agenda" (WPS), or the challenge of bringing a gender equality perspective to the institutions and practices of international conflict-prevention and peacebuilding. In the 20 years since Beijing, the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda has become more firmly internalized, or "mainstreamed", within the operation of security institutions than initially expected. It focuses on the consequences of this mainstreaming from the perspective of the core commitment to promote women's peace leadership. At the international level, there is a growing divergence between the "protection" component of the WPS agenda and the "participation" component that connects women's empowerment to long-term conflict prevention and peace building. The chapter explores the normative evolution of the WPS agenda. Two sections assess the growing centrality of conflict-related sexual violence in the overall WPS agenda and the challenges of mainstreaming its empowerment component through National Action Plans (NAPs).
