Women in Security covers a wide-range of issues as it explores the link between women, security, and development. As a forum to stimulate discussion and instructive debates, the NATO Association of Canada will examine the ways in which women both contribute to and are the focus of Canadian and NATO defence and security initiatives. This program also offers a critical look at the structures and institutions that shape the role of women in security at home and abroad.
NATO Mission Iraq seeks to include WPS in its longstanding operations. However, the recent killing of Iraqi-Canadian women’s rights activist Yanar Mohammed highlights that insecurity for women remains prominent in Iraq, as women’s rights lag in the face of continued instability. As it supports Iraq’s reconstruction, NATO Mission Iraq must undertake a renewed commitment to implement WPS across its operations, support a safe environment for women’s rights defenders and civil society, and foster sustainable peacebuilding and societal resilience.
In just over a year as Prime Minister, Mark Carney has drawn stark comparisons to his predecessor, Justin Trudeau. Canada has since committed to bolstering hard military power and trade diversification in response to a complex geostrategic environment, a stark departure from the values-based and progressive policy that was a hallmark of the Trudeau era. In this article, Isabelle Zhu argues that despite the explicit differences across Trudeau’s approach and the current government’s on foreign policy, there is actually substantial continuity as it pertains to Canada’s Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) and the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. Under Carney, Canada can continue to pursue its defence and security objectives through investments in WPS principles.
Ukrainian women-led organizations are building the evidentiary record for Russian wartime sexual violence, but are Canada and its NATO allies directing enough resources to the mechanisms that make accountability possible? In this article, Kaya Dupuis examines how organizations like La Strada-Ukraine and JurFem are documenting conflict-related sexual violence under active fire and what Canada’s commitments under NATO’s Women, Peace and Security agenda actually look like on the ground.
Armed conflict is often measured by territorial gains, military casualties, and geopolitical consequences. Yet one of its most enduring and overlooked consequences is the destruction of health systems and the disproportionate burden placed on the health of women and girls. As conflicts become increasingly protracted, attacks on healthcare facilities, the displacement of civilians, and widespread Read More…
NATO has just launched LeadInSecurity, its first Alliance-wide leadership accelerator for women in defence and security. In this article, Tessa McDermid explores how the program offers NATO an opportunity to close the sector’s gender gap and uphold its Women, Peace and Security (WPS) commitments. Since LeadInSecurity has no internal track record to draw on, she looks to comparable programs to argue that its long-term success depends on outcome tracking, integration into NATO’s existing accountability frameworks, setting numeric targets, and running as a recurring, multi-year initiative rather than a standalone initiative.
The 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara presented a unique opportunity to uphold the importance of NATO’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda in the pursuit of collective security. Growing concerns over Turkey’s domestic humanitarian record underscored a deeper importance to this conversation. Nonetheless, at a time where confrontation is often chosen over conversation, the Summit offered a reminder of the importance of the willingness to gather. Through an examination of key discussions on gender-responsive security at the Ankara Summit, this article contends that the willingness to gather must be matched by a willingness to act. The Alliance’s greatest strength lies in its continued capacity to choose diplomacy, have hard conversations, and hold one another accountable for transforming dialogue into durable action.
Canada’s shift to the Indo-Pacific for trade, economic, and defence opportunities is a strategic pivot away from the United States to create key partnerships and establish diplomatic ties. This also highlights an avenue for Canada to reaffirm its commitment to the broader values and principles represented by the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, where the US appears to have abandoned the cause. Isabelle Zhu argues that in this new geopolitical landscape, Canada can leverage its soft power and emerge as an engaged and dependable ally from security and defence to trade and energy, but also in principles and values, which contributes positively to Canada’s normative reputation and international visibility.
Critical minerals are growing crucial to NATO’s defence-industrial capacity, but the governance of their extraction has largely omitted gender sensitive considerations. This article argues that as NATO intensifies efforts to secure defence-critical mineral supply chains, leveraging its Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda can help develop a gender-responsive governing framework. Drawing on Canada’s emerging critical minerals framework, this article discusses the legal safeguards and inclusive governance that can strengthen supply chain resilience while embedding gender considerations. This way, NATO members can enhance both strategic mineral security and its commitments to sustainable peace and security in tandem with gender equality.
With increasing geopolitical challenges and polarized public discourse, the WPS agenda faces a reluctant political environment. As a crucial element of lasting peacebuilding,
NATO must build resilience in its WPS agenda by planning multilateral initiatives for today’s political context.
Historically, the mobilization of hundreds of Caribbean women into vital Allied logistics and technical roles proved that non-traditional networks are indispensable during global crises. Today, as NATO adapts to a shifting security landscape, the Alliance can draw directly from the legacy of these wartime networks to modernize its recruitment strategies and structural resilience.
