OSF Director, Sahana Dharmapuri, chaired a closed roundtable discussion on barriers to implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda, hosted by the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at The Atlantic Council on February 3, 2022. OSF’s Founder, Cynda Collins Arsenault, participated as well as leading experts in the field, government officials, and funders. The discussion centered on the challenges and opportunities to Women, Peace and Security policy implementation. OSF Director Sahana Dharmapuri noted in her opening remarks, “Women, Peace and Security is at a critical tipping point today. While an established policy framework exists at the global, national and local levels, and WPS issues have broad support among civil society, implementation takes time, requires iteration, and can be costly.” She also discussed OSF’s strategic approach to these challenges, citing a few examples such as: supporting direct country engagement on WPS National Action Plans by OSF Fellow Miki Jacevic; establishing the first WPS Congressional Caucus—a robust bipartisan initiative—led by OSF Fellow Hans Hogrefe; and providing technical assistance and original research on integrating gender perspectives in the emerging digital ecosystem with OSF Fellow Jolynn Shoemaker.
