2025 ASEAN Women Peace and Security Summit: Promoting Best Practices and Lessons Learned from the Implementation of the Regional Plan of Action on Women, Peace and Security in ASEAN

Since 2017, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has made significant strides in advancing the Women Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Translating the policy commitment made in the Joint Statement on Promoting Women, Peace and Security in ASEAN (2017), ASEAN leaders adopted the first ASEAN Regional Plan of Action on WPS (ASEAN RPA on WPS) at the ASEAN Summit in 2022. The development and implementation of the ASEAN RPA on WPS has brought representatives of ASEAN Member States, sectoral bodies and institutions across three ASEAN community pillars to work together. This process demonstrates a strong political will and commitment within ASEAN and ASEAN Member States to formalise the WPS architecture, creating unprecedented momentum across Southeast Asia to localise the WPS agenda into National Action Plans (NAP) on WPS and related national policy frameworks.

The ASEAN RPA on WPS was designed to provide a degree of flexibility to adapt and tailor the WPS agenda into the specific national contexts. It has created strong synergies between regional and national efforts to implement WPS, including the integration of WPS into peace and security decision-making, the building of a regional community of practice, as well as exchange of good practices and lessons learned in Southeast Asia.

Objectives of the ASEAN WPS Summit

Since 2020, each ASEAN Chair has played a key role in advocating for and amplifying the regional commitment to advance the WPS agenda in the region, from Viet Nam (2020) to Brunei (2021), Cambodia (2022), and Indonesia (2023). Building on the commitment made in the ASEAN RPA on WPS and first ASEAN WPS Summit hosted by Indonesia, the second ASEAN WPS Summit will be organised under the leadership of Malaysia as the Chair of ASEAN (2025) with the support of ASEAN Secretariat, UN Women and dialogue partners, including Australia, Canada, and the UK. The overall objective of the Summit is to strengthen political commitment and capture key progress, challenges and opportunities in implementing the ASEAN RPA on WPS in the region, including emerging best practices and key lessons learned from the localisation efforts identified in the ASEAN RPA on WPS.

The second ASEAN WPS Summit aims to:

• Share key results and lessons learned in the implementation of ASEAN RPA on WPS to date, including challenges and opportunities to enhance partnerships and resource mobilisation to further implement the ASEAN RPA on WPS, including initiatives that have concrete impact on the lives of women and girls at the national level
• Promote regional dialogue to enhance the regional conflict/crisis prevention mechanism from the WPS lens.
• Strengthen the WPS Community of Practice in ASEAN, including country experiences in developing and implementing NAPs on WPS  
• Commemorate the 25^th Anniversary of the UNSCR 1325 on WPS through the -exchange of emerging best practices and lessons learned among ASEAN and ASEAN Member States on women’s leadership and participation across all areas of peace and security decision making, conflict prevention, resolution and recovery
• Support coordination and networking among relevant sectoral bodies, ACW, ACWC, dialogue partners and CSOs[3]
• Promote strategic commitments to increase resources to address gaps in implementation of the WPS agenda at the regional and country levels