The Security Council’s Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security
What’s the Informal Expert Group?
The Security Council meets in its chamber in New York almost daily, conducting its business through various working groups and committees. It holds meetings on the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda and has adopted 10 resolutions on it.
During the 15th anniversary of resolution 1325 (2000), the Council unanimously adopted resolution 2242 (2015) and agreed to convene an informal expert group (IEG) to improve information and analysis on women, peace and security. The first co-chairs of the group, Spain and the United Kingdom, requested UN Women to serve as the secretariat.
Meeting up to nine times a year since then, the group provides room for transparent, regular, systematic, and timely consultations on women, peace and security concerns in specific countries on the agenda of the Security Council.
Why is the group dubbed informal?
The Council’s formal subsidiary bodies require the mandatory participation of all 15 Council members, and they operate by consensus. This is not the case for the IEG. It provides a forum to hear assessments and non-binding recommendations from the United Nations and UN Women. The 2015 global study on women, peace and security intentionally recommended that it be an informal rather than a formal group. There are other informal expert groups supporting the work of the Security Council, such as on the protection of civilians and climate, peace and security.
How does it work?
The first two IEG co-chairs agreed on guidelines for the group. Each year, two Council members co-chair it. They decide on the agenda, invite UN leaders to attend briefings, and convene meetings. Each meeting is a rare opportunity to discuss with UN leadership the latest women, peace and security developments in specific contexts, and to expand the discussion beyond diplomats and UN staff that are already focused on gender-related issues. The IEG may also conduct visits to countries and take measures to follow up on meetings and visits, such as diplomatic démarches or letters on some of the issues highlighted in these meetings.
Meetings are open only to Council members and UN staff, but summaries of the sessions are published as official letters to the Security Council and translated into the six official UN languages. This library in UN Women’s knowledge hub provides all background documents circulated before each meeting, along with their corresponding summaries. The Security Council Report also compiles the outcomes of these meetings.
What difference does the group make?
The IEG’s main objective is to improve the Security Council’s information and analysis on women, peace and security in specific situations or crises. It helps Council Members gain a synthesis of the best available UN insights, with much greater detail and nuance than would be possible in a meeting covering a variety of issues. IEG meetings and background documents, prepared by UN Women, also amplify women’s civil society advocacy.
The IEG has likely contributed to the greater integration of women, peace and security language in decisions adopted by the Council. From 2016, when the group began convening, to 2024, 64 per cent of decisions included references to women or gender-related issues. From 2000 to 2015, the share was only 37 per cent.
The IEG may help to mobilize Council members to take action on specific issues. On several occasions, IEG co-chairs have sent letters from their ambassadors to conflict parties, facilitators of peace talks, or UN leadership to remind them of their obligations and previous Council decisions.
Meetings may also motivate UN leaders to become more active on women, peace and security, rather than leaving these concerns only to gender advisers or UN Women. The formal summaries, as official documents of the Security Council available in six languages, may help UN agencies and their civil society partners with advocacy, fundraising, or to better position gender issues within internal UN coordination.
IEG information and analysis are shared widely by Council members, including with their capitals and embassies as well as external actors. For example, the World Bank has used these materials to inform country profiles and programmes.
Mentions in Security Council resolutions
Several Council resolutions have reinforced the IEG’s role. For quick reference, they include:
- Resolution 2242 (2015): Recognizes the ongoing need for greater integration of resolution 1325 (2000) in its own work in alignment with resolution 2122 (2013), including the need to address challenges linked to the provision of specific information and recommendations on the gender dimensions of situations on the Council’s agenda, to inform and help strengthen the Council’s decisions, and therefore, in addition to elements set out in resolution 2122 (2013), and in accordance with established practice and procedure: expresses its intention to convene meetings of relevant Security Council experts as part of an IEG to facilitate a more systematic approach to women, peace and security within its own work and enable greater oversight and coordination of implementation efforts.
- Resolution 2467 (2019): Recognizes the work of the IEG, as expressed in resolution 2242 (2015), and expresses its intention to consider its information, analysis, and recommendations, acknowledging UN Women’s important role in this regard, and emphasizes that sexual violence in armed conflict and post-conflict situations and all other aspects of the women, peace and security agenda should continue to be addressed in this forum.
- Resolution 2493 (2019): Takes note of the work of the IEG, as expressed in resolution 2242 (2015), to facilitate a more systematic approach to women, peace and security within its own work and enable greater oversight and coordination of implementation efforts, and acknowledges UN Women’s important role in this regard.
