Billions for arms, pennies for peace: UK and allies fail to fund women peacebuilders 25 years after UN pledge

The UK - along with other leading NATO powers - has spent decades paying lip service to the UN’s 2000 Women, Peace and Security (WPS) resolution, according to a new Oxfam report published today.

The report called “Beyond Rhetoric” shows that while military spending has risen by $1.5 trillion in 84 countries in 2024, aid for gender equality and peace fell by 7.1 per cent. Women’s organizations are now getting less than half a cent of every dollar of aid.

Amina Hersi, Oxfam’s Head of Gender, Rights and Justice, said: “Feminist-led peace hasn’t failed – it has been betrayed”.

“A generation after world leaders promised women a seat at the table, the same powerful states that authored the blueprint have simply not backed it properly. Women peacebuilders are being left to nurture shattered communities, shouldering most of the responsibility but without enough political space or financial backing to do so.”

Oxfam warns that promises made toward securing women’s leadership in peace and security building are collapsing.

Case studies from Colombia, the DRC, the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), and South Sudan find that national action plans remain mostly empty pledges, even as rising militarization means that important women rights actors and peacebuilders become further sidelined.

NATO members alone have increased defence spending to $159 billion over the past decade, while global funding for gender-responsive peace has flatlined and is now in freefall.

The same NATO powers touting feminist foreign policies and National Action Plans on WPS —including Canada, the US, the UK and France — along with the UN Security Council, have largely failed to act in the face of atrocities in the DRC, the OPT, South Sudan and beyond.

Funding for global gender, conflict, peace and security aid only accounts for just 2.6 per cent ($7.5 billion) of total ODA ($289 billion). Of the $148 million in global gender, peace and security aid that went to women’s rights in 2023, only $4.7 million – 3.1 per cent – actually reached local women rights organisations. More starkly, between 2014 and 2023, just 0.1 per cent of overall ODA reached women’s rights and women-led organisations directly; while cuts in 2025 threaten to close almost half of such organisations in crisis settings within months.

Attacks on women and girls during conflicts have soared. Verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence rose by 50 per cent in 2023 while the incidence of grave violations against girls increased 35 per cent. The report also highlights:

• In Colombia, over 180 women human rights defenders were killed in 2023 alone, and the gender provisions in its own peace accord remain among the least implemented.
• In DRC, only 13 per cent of parliamentary seats are held by women, and there is evidence of high levels of conflict related sexual and gender-based violence and displacement fuelled by mineral extraction and widespread militarisation and conflict.
• In OPT, Israel’s genocide in Gaza and violent repression in the West Bank, on top of decades of illegal occupation, has resulted in severe violations of the rights and lives of women. These violations include sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated by Israeli forces, as well as restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities, such as military checkpoints and the destruction of health infrastructure, that have denied women access to essential reproductive healthcare and violated their reproductive rights.
• In South Sudan, women’s 35 per cent political quota has not translated into genuine influence, amid repression and pervasive sexual and gender-based violence used as a weapon of war.

“Feminist peace is a political imperative, not an optional extra. Unless governments change course now, the WPS agenda will be remembered as just another broken promise,” said Hersi.

“The real contribution of the WPS agenda is not only about including women in peace processes, but instead a fundamental challenge to transform unequal power structures. This is a process that continues to be led from the ground by feminist actors, often at great personal risk.”

Following the UN Security Council’s Annual Open Debate on Women Peace and Security, Oxfam is calling for member states to deliver a radical reset and redirect some of their military spending toward peacebuilding.

They should guarantee that at least half of WPS funding goes directly to grassroots women’s rights organisations. They should also do more to enforce accountability for those responsible for genocide, war crimes and sexual and gender-based violence.

“The WPS agenda remains an essential tool for women peacebuilders, women’s rights and feminist actors,” Hersi said.

“Whether it survives as a force for justice depends on the global community backing its principles with the resources and political will to make that potential real. Without this happening, the 25th anniversary of the UN Resolution on Women, Peace and Security will be a mark of its decline, not its maturity.”

Notes to the editor

• Report: https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/beyond-rhetoric-feminist-leadership-transformative-women-peace-and-security-agenda-25
• Military spending data from Tian, Nan; Scarazzato, Lorenzo and Guiberteau, Jade Ricard (2025). Nato’s New Spending Target: Challenges and risks associated with a political signal.
• 7.1% figure from United Nations. (2025, September 9). The Security We Need: Rebalancing Military Spending for a Sustainable and Peaceful Future [Report]. United Nations Secretary‑General.
• Aid data from OECD DAC CRS.