The world has marked International Women’s Day at a time when it seems decades of gender equality efforts are up in smoke. The Australian Government finally released their report on the implementation of Australia’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, years behind schedule. Two leading experts provide us with a breakdown on the report and how Australia has been faring with its implementation.

Last month, the Australian Government released its progress report on Australia’s National Action Plan 2021-2031 (NAP) on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). The WPS agenda, established by the United Nations, is aimed at, promoting women’s participation in peace processes, protecting women and girls in conflict, preventing gender-based violence, and integrating gender perspectives in peace and security efforts. The NAP outlines a whole-of-government strategy to contribute to this UN agenda. 

According to the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework outlined in the NAP, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is due to publish regular progress reports to capture Australia’s contributions and monitor implementation. The first progress report covering the implementation period 2021-23 was scheduled for the end of 2023 but was released over a year late.  

What is in the Report? 

The progress report emphasises Australia’s strong commitment to advancing the WPS agenda through diplomatic engagement, capacity-building, and gender equality initiatives. It presents activities undertaken by implementing departments—the Department of Defence, Australian Federal Police, Department of Home Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and Australian Civil-Military Centre—against four key outcomes: 

1. Supporting women and girls’ meaningful participation in conflict prevention and peace processes 
2. Reducing sexual and gender-based violence 
3. Supporting resilience, crisis response, and security, law, and justice sector efforts to meet women and girls’ needs and rights 
4. Demonstrating leadership and accountability for the Women, Peace, and Security agenda

Australia’s efforts are primarily concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, though there are indications of global engagement with activities in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Nigeria, and multilateral UN forums. The work spans issues including women’s political participation, violence prevention,  radicalisation, justice, climate change, cybersecurity, and women’s leadership. The report demonstrates Australia’s strength in international advocacy and partnership building. It highlights collaboration with defence and police forces, justice systems, and civil society organisations throughout the Asia-Pacific. Annex B of the report lists 105 WPS-related statements either led or sponsored by Australia between 2021 and 2023. 

Limitations of the Monitoring & Evaluation Framework 

Despite cataloguing numerous programs and initiatives, the progress report lacks clear metrics for success. Engagement does not necessarily equal outcomes, and while many people are working in this space, the actual impact remains difficult to assess. Quantifiable outcomes are limited primarily to the Department of Defence reporting on women’s deployment numbers, Gender Focal Points across services, and gender and rank disaggregated deployment data. Other departments rely on qualitative case studies that, while potentially valuable, are presented as brief statements of success without substantive metrics. This approach falls short of providing meaningful evaluation. Measuring success in WPS is undoubtedly challenging, as numerical increases don’t always indicate meaningful progress. Previous civil society critiques of the NAP highlighted the limitations of merely counting Australian women involved in exercises or training without assessing actual outcomes. While this report largely avoids simply counting women, it fails to develop suitable alternative metrics that capture metrics. 

The underlying problem appears to be the structural weakness of the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (M&E). During consultations on the draft NAP, civil society organisations and WPS experts raised specific concerns about the framework’s design. Their primary criticism was that the M&E framework established extremely limited direct reporting requirements for the Australian government and its implementing agencies. Instead of requiring departments to track and report on specific, measurable outcomes of their own WPS initiatives, the framework allowed them to rely heavily on global trends and data collected by multilateral organisations such as UN Women, UNICEF, and the World Bank. 

This framework design essentially creates a situation where the government can appear to be fulfilling its reporting obligations while avoiding rigorous scrutiny of whether its initiatives are actually making a difference. Civil society experts specifically warned that this approach would result in exactly what we’ve seen in the progress report: extensive listings of activities with minimal evidence of concrete outcomes or impacts on the women the NAP is meant to serve. 

A more robust M&E framework would require the government to establish specific targets, collect consistent data on its own initiatives, and evaluate programs against meaningful success criteria directly related to improving conditions for women in conflict-affected areas. A previous independent review report offers detailed suggestions for designing and implementing an effective M&E based on international best practices. 

Gaps in Addressing Critical Issues 

Ultimately, the NAP’s progress should be evaluated by the women it aims to serve, as methodologically exemplified, for instance, in the 2022 report by the Australian Civil Society Coalition for Women, Peace and Security, “What do peace and security mean to diverse women in Australia?“. The government progress report highlights that Australia has made strides in building networks of women and facilitating their participation in various forums, demonstrating the benefits to women. One success story highlighted is Ms. Nancy Oraka-Pomoso from the Papua New Guinea Customs Service, who—sponsored by DFAT for a Graduate Certificate of Customs Administration—became the first woman appointed as the Oceania Customs Organisation Head of Secretariat in 202 

However, the report omits the voices of many women not served by the NAP, despite its obligations to protect women. For example, there is no mention of human rights abuse against women and girls in Palestine sponsored by the Israeli state or of the Yazidi and Afghani women who suffered conflict-related gender and sexual violence with links to Australia. Notably, while the Department of Defence has finally established a compensation plan for families of Afghan victims killed unlawfully by Australian Special Forces in 2014, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal declined to provide reparation to the five Yazidi women who were held captive in the house of an Australian IS fighter in Syria.  Australia’s commitment to the WPS thus failed the Yazidi women seeking reparation and justice. Furthermore, despite the progress report praises the Women At Risk Visa category, Afghan women face nearly insurmountable barriers to obtaining Australian visas. 

Effective outcomes from the NAP are also hamstrung by institutional features of its implementation. For instance, within Defence, gender, peace, and security responsibilities have been reassigned to its human resources branch, distancing this work from operational spaces where it belongs. WPS should be about improving international peace and security outcomes, not treated as an HR matter. To achieve this, the Australian Government needs a gender advisor in the National Security Committee of Cabinet to ensure gender dynamics are considered when Parliament and senior leadership determine Australia’s responses to overseas conflicts or disasters. 

What’s next? 

While Australia has achieved some success in implementing the WPS agenda, there are also significant failures. Some stem from the poorly constructed monitoring and evaluation framework, while others result from structural constraints and the prioritisation of national security over human rights. 

Transparency and accountability remain major limitations in Australia’s WPS implementation efforts. This is evident not only in the delayed progress report but also in its inability to track meaningful progress and acknowledge areas needing improvement. 

The next report on Australia’s NAP will be the Shadow Report to be released by the Australian Civil Society Coalition on Women, Peace, and Security in the coming months, followed by an Independent Interim Report to be commissioned in July 2025 and completed by December 2025. According to the NAP, implementing departments will take a six-month reflection period to consider the Interim Review’s recommendations, which may alter current outcomes, priorities, and actions. This suggests the NAP is a living document, highlighting the importance of identifying limitations and areas for improvement.

Dr Federica Caso is a lecturer in International Relations at La Trobe University. Her research examines how the inclusion of gender and racial diversity in the military shapes defence and society, and her main project investigates Indigenous military inclusion, settler politics, and reconciliation. She received multiple early career research awards, and her book Settler Military Politics was published in 2024 by Edinburgh University Press. She is also co-chair of the Women Caucus of the Australian Political Studies Association. 

Susan Hutchinson is a civil-military professional with experience in the military, government and NGO sectors. She is currently a PhD Candidate at the Australian National University’s Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. Susan lives with a chronic disabling illness but spends time volunteering for social justice. In this capacity she is the architect of the prosecute; don’t perpetrate campaign to help end impunity for conflict related sexual violence and the Executive Director of Azadi-e Zan, a small NGO devoted to helping Afghan women’s rights defenders escaping the Taliban. She is also a founding member of the Australian Civil Society Coalition for Women, Peace and Security.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.