Armenia: Women, Peace and Security

IWPR partners in Armenia who played a central role in drafting the country’s third National Action Plan (NAP) have joined government officials to launch the initiative, which will ensure the rights of women and girls are an integral part of future policy-making process.

The May 19 event in Yerevan marked the first time NGOs in Armenia have been directly involved in implementing the landmark 2000 UN resolution that set out an international Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. More than 100 UN member states have instituted NAPs that lay out objectives and concrete steps to ensure women’s rights in conflict settings and ensure their meaningful participation in peace and security.

The event opened with remarks from Robert Abisoghomonyan, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, UK Ambassador to Armenia John Gallagher and Ana Dabrundashvili, IWPR’s Senior Project Manager.

A discussion panel then brought IWPR’s civil society partners together to share insights into the development process.

“The National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security is not just a policy—it’s a promise,” said Gulnara Shahinyan, president of human rights NGO Democracy Today. “A promise to centre women’s voices in building peace, to protect those most affected by conflict, and to transform our future through equality and justice.”

Democracy Today aggregated extensive feedback into a cohesive document, working closely with both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and fellow CSOs to ensure that the final plan reflected a broad spectrum of local perspectives and priorities.

The OxYGen Foundation, an advocacy and development foundation, designed the plan’s first-ever Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework, which introduces mechanisms to track progress and promote transparency.

“We are pleased to be trusted with the development of the M&E framework,” said Margarita Hakobyan, OxYGen’s Executive Director. “It makes the NAP significantly more result-oriented and strengthens its accountability mechanisms—an important step forward in advancing the WPS agenda in a more strategic and measurable way.”

Grassroots engagement was led by the Armavir Development Center (ADC), which facilitated eight town halls across Armenia.

“We ensured the direct involvement of more than 560 citizens in the NAP development process,” said Ani Tovmasyan, ADC project expert. “This level of inclusive participation had not been present in previous NAPs, and it added significant value to the third plan.”

The town halls also informed ADC guidelines to support municipal governments in implementing the plan at the community level.

“This guideline enables local self-government bodies to implement the localisation process step by step,” noted ADC President Naira Arakelyan. “It is also endorsed in the Third NAP as a core tool for bringing the WPS agenda closer to local communities.”

These combined efforts have resulted in a grounded, inclusive and forward-looking National Action Plan that builds on Armenia’s prior work while introducing new tools and priorities to meet emerging challenges. Cybersecurity threats and climate change, for instance, have been integrated for the first time.

The event marked the growing recognition of civil society’s role in shaping peace and security policy in Armenia, and reflects the impact of the Building Resilience in the Eastern Neighbourhood (BREN) programme, with three of its partner organisations playing a central role. The BREN programme, delivered by IWPR and supported by the UK’s Integrated Security Fund (ISF), focuses on empowering civil society organisations across the South Caucasus and Moldova by providing sub-grants to promote security, equality and social justice.

The next step is for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to submit the NAP for formal government approval.