IRELAND 

Ireland’s Fourth Women, Peace and Security National Action Plan (2025–2030)

Ireland’s Fourth National Action Plan (NAP) on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) sets Ireland’s strategy for advancing gender equality in peace and security across domestic and international contexts from 2025 to 2030. It represents the latest evolution of Ireland’s WPS policy framework under UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and related resolutions.  

The plan was officially launched by the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, outlining Ireland’s commitment to placing women and girls at the centre of efforts to prevent conflict, sustain peace, protect rights, and integrate gender perspectives across peace and security efforts.  

Objectives

While the full Plan text is detailed, the Fourth NAP broadly builds on the four interrelated pillars of the WPS agenda and frames specific objectives and actions within them:

1. Prevention  

- Strengthen conflict prevention with a gender lens, including tackling the gendered drivers of insecurity and violence.

- Integrate gender analysis in peace and security programming and diplomatic engagement.
 

2. Participation

- Support the full and meaningful participation of women in peace processes, diplomacy, and leadership in security and governance.

- Champion women’s participation in national, regional, and international peace and security forums.  
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3. Protection

- Protect the rights and well-being of women and girls affected by conflict and crisis, both internationally and across the island of Ireland (including legacy issues in Northern Ireland contexts).

- Address gender-based violence and access to essential services.  
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4. Relief & Recovery / Promotion

- Ensure gender-responsive humanitarian action and post-conflict recovery that amplifies women’s leadership.

- Promote Ireland’s WPS commitments through international partnerships and best-practice exchange.  
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The Plan includes concrete actions, impacts, outcomes and monitoring indicators aligned with these pillars, although the full detailed objectives require direct reference to the official Plan document.  
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Civil Society Involvement & Oversight

Civil society plays a central role throughout the Fourth NAP:
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1. Consultations: The Plan was developed through inclusive consultations with government departments, civil society groups, academia, and communities from across Ireland — including voices from migrant women and people affected by conflict.  
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2. Oversight Group: An independent Oversight Group will monitor implementation. It includes experts from relevant civil society organisations, government departments and academia, bringing diverse perspectives on achieving WPS objectives.  

- The Group will meet regularly and is meant to ensure transparent, accountable delivery of the Plan’s actions.  

Civil society engagement ensures grassroots input into policy formation, helps hold the government accountable to its commitments, and supports monitoring and evaluation across the Plan’s lifetime

3. Women’s Roles in Security Sectors (Police, Peacekeeping, Military)

The Fourth NAP itself, as publicly summarised, does not provide extensive standalone statistics on women’s roles in Irish security institutions. However, there are relevant points and context from related sources:
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4. Peacekeeping Participation

- Ireland has a long history of contributing to UN peacekeeping missions.

- According to recent UN peacekeeping data (global context), women remain under-represented in peacekeeping: women made up around 11 % of police units and a small share of military personnel in UN missions as of early 2020s.  

- While this is global data, it points to broader challenges embedded in WPS frameworks worldwide, including within Irish contributions.
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National Focus on Participation

- Ireland’s WPS policy emphasises enhancing women’s participation in peace and security decision-making, which by extension includes security sectors such as policing and peacekeeping roles abroad.  

- Previous analyses of Ireland’s WPS (third NAP) highlighted civil society’s role in pushing for increased women’s representation within peace operations and security dialogues — often stressing the need for more data and gender-inclusive practices in security institutions.  
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Domestic Security Sectors (Policing & Military)

- There is limited publicly available breakdown within the Fourth NAP itself of women’s representation in Ireland’s Defence Forces or An Garda Síochána (Irish police) — this type of baseline participation data typically appears in supplementary reports or national statistics outside the WPS plan.

- However, inclusion and gender-responsive policies are central themes of the Plan’s participation and protection objectives, which can directly influence recruitment, retention, and leadership opportunities for women in security sectors.  
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UN Peacekeeping Statistics:

As of March 31, 2025, Ireland contributed 363 Peacekeeping personnel (of which 21 are female)

Ireland's ranking as a contributor of personnel to UN peacekeeping missions: 31

Monitoring Data & Reporting

- The Plan includes a monitoring and learning framework to measure progress and outcomes — though much of this reporting (including detailed indicators like security sector data) is implemented through annual or periodic reports rather than within the Plan text itself.  

- Civil society and oversight mechanisms will support evaluation, helping ensure that goals (including those related to women’s participation across sectors) are tracked over time.  

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References‍

- Contributions of Uniformed Personnel to UN by Country, Mission, and Personnel Type (March 2025): 05-Missions Detailed By Country

https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/05_missions_detailed_by_country_84_march_2025.pdf
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Ireland NAP WPS

- https://assets.ireland.ie/documents/Final_WPS_NAP.pdf

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