The persistence of gender inequality remains both a cause and a consequence of violent conflict. It fuels exclusion, drives instability and denies half the population the chance to rebuild peace.

Breaking this cycle requires investing in women’s leadership in peacebuilding and crisis recovery, and tailoring support to women and girls to meet their unique needs. 

This can be achieved through four critical actions; promoting women’s participation and justice; ensuring women’s inclusion in disarmament and reintegration; financing recovery that puts gender equality at the centre; and grounding all these efforts in data and analysis.

First, sustainable peace demands justice, and justice must include women’s voices. Through the Gender Justice Platform, UNDP and partners support women’s participation in transitional justice and reconciliation processes, from truth commissions in South Sudan to land-dispute mediation in Yemen and tribunals in Colombia. When women help shape justice, they bring perspectives essential for reconciliation, community healing and the prevention of future conflict. Justice is not only about accountability – it is about restoring dignity and ensuring that recovery reflects women’s experiences and aspirations.

Second, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) processes must include women in all their diversity. Too often, women associated with armed groups are excluded from reintegration efforts and face stigma when they return home. Applying a development lens to DDR is essential to restoring dignity and preventing renewed cycles of violence. 

In Iraq, Nigeria, Cameroon and Colombia, women once tied to armed groups are now leading livelihood initiatives, learning new skills and helping to heal divided communities. These are not just stories of reintegration – they are stories of transformation.

Third, recovery must be financed in ways that put gender equality at the heart of decision-making. When economic systems perpetuate gender bias, they undermine peace and development alike. The question is no longer whether we can afford to prioritize gender equality, but whether we can afford not to. 

Through initiatives such as Equanomics, UNDP works with governments to reform public finance systems, repeal gender-biased tax laws and design budgets for social protection that prioritize women’s needs such as affordable childcare. From Lebanon to Eswatini, the Philippines to Colombia, this approach ensures that women’s economic participation and leadership are not afterthoughts, but drivers of recovery.

Finally, lasting peace requires evidence. Without data and analysis that capture how gender dynamics influence crises, policies risk missing the realities on the ground. Building on pilot initiatives across Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, UNDP recently launched a new guidance  note on Gender-Responsive Conflict Analysis to ensure that development programming is grounded in lived experience. 

This participatory approach brings women-led organizations and local voices into decision-making, echoing the United Nations Secretary-General’s call for stronger gender data to make peacebuilding more accountable and impactful.

Over the years, I have met women in some of the world’s most fragile settings, former combatants in Ethiopia leading local peacebuilding initiatives, women entrepreneurs in Syria rebuilding amid economic collapse, and young women in South Sudan standing up to speak up about their future. Their stories may be different, but their determination is the same. They remind me that women are not waiting to be saved, they are already leading recovery in ways that hold their communities together.

The promise of Resolution 1325 was never only about protection, it was about power. About recognizing that peace cannot hold if half the population is left behind. Twenty-five years later, as conflicts multiply and military spending soars, we must return to that original promise.

Because every investment in women’s leadership, economic recovery and justice is an investment in peace itself.

There is no peace without gender equality.