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As chair of the UK Associate Parliamentary Group on Women, Peace and Security, I visited New York for the launch of UN Women, the new UN Entity intended to lead on women's equality and empowerment. Trying to understand the impact the new agency will have on Women, Peace and Security policy (WPS) and where it will fit in the now bewildering architecture of the UN, I was struck by the intensity of expectations that the international community are hanging on this nascent institution.

WPS policy largely stems from the landmark SCR 1325 (2000), when the issue of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in conflict and women's participation in peace building were finally resolved by the UN Security Council as a relevant to their agenda. Since then, there has been plenty of supportive language, with UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR) 1820, 1888, 1889 and 1960 all reaffirming the Council's commitment to the cause.

This progress is, of course, welcome but beneath the rhetorical gloss, cracks in the masonry of international commitment are easy to find. The pattern of Council activity on WPS since 1325 clearly demonstrates that not all Member States believe it belongs on the Council agenda.

SCR 1889 (2009), for example, finally requested the Secretary-General to produce indicators to track the implementation of 1325, but when the proposed indicators were considered by the Council in October 2010, there was neither a formal resolution nor a formal endorsement, only a Presidential Statement which expressed ‘support.' From conversations with civil society and UN representatives during a series of meetings in the week of the launch, it was not only clear that even this lukewarm outcome was the product of hard-fought diplomacy but also that the episode was not an isolated one.

Indeed, a recent review of the Council's performance on WPS found that ‘there seems to be a continuing level of scepticism...as to whether this issue is really relevant,' adding, ‘the scepticism tends to be particularly pronounced with regards to the relevance of women's participation, such as their inclusion in peace processes (as opposed to the importance of protection issues).

Amongst Member States and officials there are WPS supporters, particularly NATO Members and Partners, the UK, US, Canada and Austria, but the doubters fall into two main camps:

• Those who contest that the entire WPS agenda is in fact a justice and development issue to be considered after the peace has been made; and,
• Those who split the WPS agenda into two: SGBV, which they accept should be addressed as a security issue alongside other protection issues, and women's participation in peace building, which they consider a purely development issue.

The impact of this division on WPS can be seen in the recent emphasis on SGBV. UNSCRs 1820, 1888 and 1960 have all made welcome advances for UN action on SGBV, and in particular, mandated the appointment of SGSR on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Margot Wöllstrom. Of course, this represents significant progress on the SGBV aspects of WPS but it also shows that it is easier to get action on protection than participation.

The impact on the ground is clear. The DRC has just seen the groundbreaking conviction and sentencing of senior commander, Lt Col Kibibi for the mass rape in eastern DRC. This is a huge step towards ending impunity of perpetrators of SGBV but at the same time, there are 31 ongoing armed conflicts arising from failed peace processes. Not a single one of those peace processes included women. UNIFEM extrapolated from a sample of 24 peace processes since 1992 that an average of only 8 percent of peace negotiators and 3 percent of peace treaty signatories have been women. Despite the vocal support for the WPS agenda then, this data shows negligible improvement in women's participation in peace building since 1325.

All this means that WPS being named as one of UN Women's six focus areas is highly significant. UNIFEM never had the status or the budget to effectively keep WPS on the UN security agenda.

It is likely, therefore, that the role that USG Michelle Bachelet carves out for UN Women on WPS will be make or break for the future of participation issues on the UN security agenda. The Council have opened the door for this, inviting UN Women to ‘contribute regularly' to their work on WPS, an opportunity not extended to many UN Entities. The challenges Bachelet faces, however, are manifold. She must attract sufficient funding to establish a global operation; she must navigate her way through the infamous UN bureaucracy to be able to spend that money; she must negotiate the complex web of inter-agency allegiances and territorial claims to find operational space for UN Women, and most of all, she must prove herself, through sheer force of personality, as a leader to be reckoned with in the constellation of UN actors.

If Bachelet and UN Women cannot achieve this, and quickly, there will be little hope of seriously challenging the gender inequalities so entrenched in conflict scenarios. Women's participation in countries now hanging in the balance - Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, to name an obvious few - will fall back off the security agenda at the Council and elsewhere. And UN Women will have proved to be a useful panacea, a rhetorical device which represents the form of action but without the power or the outcomes.

On the other hand, if UN Women do achieve this, then last week's launch may prove a turning point. A crucial advance in the argument that peace building and conflict prevention policies that do not involve women are fatally weakened and undermine progress on global security objectives.

To quote HE Ms Joy Ogwu, Nigerian Ambassador to UN and President of UN Women, ‘no one can run fast on one foot.' A security agenda that thinks it can do without women's participation has been a limping beast. Let's hope UN Women can start being part of the remedy.

Nicola Blackwood is a Member of Parliament, UK, and Chair of the Associate Parliamentary Group on Women, Peace and Security.  

This article was submitted for the atlantic-community.org's competition: "Empowering Women in International Relations." It coincides with the 10th Anniversary of UN resolution 1325 calling for an increased influence of women in all aspects of peace and security. The contest is sponsored by the U.S. Mission to NATO and the NATO Public Diplomacy Division.

You can find more information about the competition here.