By Maryruth Belsey Priebe
This blog post is drawn from a forthcoming book chapter on sustaining WPS achievements in the Asia-Pacific region authored by Dr. Alan Okros, Dr. Crystal Pryor, and Ms. Shanti Shoji
The Liberal Party’s return to government presents a timely opportunity to accelerate Canada’s implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in the Asia-Pacific region. While domestic political upheaval captures headlines and anti-gender movements gain ground globally, Canadian policymakers should examine the Asia-Pacific more closely. The region that once relied heavily on Western donors for gender-based programming has built its own WPS capacity and is increasingly sharing its expertise with others. Recent developments in the Asia-Pacific offer compelling lessons about what works—and what doesn’t—when implementing WPS initiatives across diverse political and cultural contexts.
The Transformation That’s Already Happening
The Asia-Pacific has moved beyond being a passive recipient of donor-driven gender-based programming. Countries like Japan and the Philippines aren’t just implementing their own WPS frameworks—they’re exporting their expertise and leading global policy development.
This shift represents an evolution from “donor-led initiatives” to an emerging self-sustaining ecosystem. The numbers tell the story: 13 countries in the Asia-Pacific region now have National Action Plans on WPS, anchored by the groundbreaking ASEAN Regional Plan of Action adopted in 2022. This isn’t symbolic politics—it’s institutional change at scale.
The Philippines exemplifies this maturation. Their fourth-generation National Action Plan adopts a “whole-of-nation approach” that goes well beyond government bureaucracy to meaningfully engage civil society. Still, significant challenges remain, particularly in areas like gender-based violence and ensuring meaningful participation reaches all levels of society.
What Canada Got Right (And What It Missed)
Canada’s engagement in the region reveals both promising innovations and missed opportunities that the new Liberal government should carefully examine. The WPS Chiefs/Heads of Defence Network stands out as a genuine success story—bringing together Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand in a forum that transcends traditional donor-recipient relationships.
In Malaysia, rather than imposing a predetermined agenda, Canada responded to specific requests from the Malaysian Armed Forces for professional development support. This country-led approach enabled Malaysia to develop focused WPS capacities while positioning itself to support regional partners—a textbook example of sustainable capacity building.
However, the reality reveals a persistent Canadian weakness: spreading resources too thinly across too many initiatives. Canadian funds, personnel and political attention get dispersed across numerous regions and initiatives, meaning contributions in the Asia-Pacific often feel more ceremonial than meaningful. This is unfortunate, particularly given Canada’s outsized ambitions in the region. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy commits a large sum of nearly CAD 2.3 billion over five years. The new government has an opportunity to use those funds strategically to choose depth over breadth.
The Civil Society Imperative
One of the most important realities coming out of the Asia-Pacific WPS implementation concerns the central role of civil society organisations. As in Canada, these aren’t merely service providers or implementation partners—they function as critical bridges connecting community needs with national and international policy processes.
The first WPS graduate diploma programme in the Asia-Pacific emerged through collaboration between Mindanao State University in the Philippines, local women’s commissions, and international partners including the UK government and UN Development Programme (UNDP).
Canadian programming works best when it creates space for civil society to co-create rather than simply consult. Even in countries making significant strides, ongoing capacity building and partnership remain essential. Such collaborations enable programming that reflects local conflict dynamics, gender norms, and intersecting inequalities rather than imposing external templates.
Navigating the Backlash
The new Canadian government inherits a global context where WPS faces unprecedented headwinds. The UN Secretary-General describes “the reversal of generational gains” in women’s and girls’ rights, with Canada’s own third National Action Plan acknowledging the “devastating impacts of online violence” and growth of “anti-gender and anti-feminist movements.”
The Asia-Pacific isn’t immune to these pressures, but the region’s response offers strategic insights. Rather than retreating from transformative gender equality goals, successful programmes have doubled down on building institutional resilience. Japan’s creation of the WPS Parliamentarians’ Network–a cross-party group of Japanese Diet (Japan’s bicameral legistlature) members focused on advancing the WPS agenda through legislative advocacy and policy–and integration of WPS into its disaster risk reduction policies exemplifies this approach—embedding gender perspectives so deeply into existing systems that they become harder to dislodge.
The research suggests this institutional integration strategy may prove more effective than defending WPS as a standalone agenda. When gender considerations become integral to climate resilience, economic development, and security planning, they’re less vulnerable to political shifts.
The Path Forward: Five Strategic Shifts
The Asia-Pacific experience suggests five concrete shifts for Canada’s new government:
First, prioritise sustained institutional support over project-based interventions. The research consistently highlights that long-term capacity building supersedes short-term programming wins–sustainable growth and equitable development are best achieved through ongoing institutional support rather than isolated projects. This means accepting slower, less photogenic events in exchange for deeper, more durable change.
Second, embrace true co-creation with regional partners. The most successful Canadian initiatives in the region responded to partner-country priorities rather than imposing external agendas. This requires genuine intellectual humility about what Canada can learn from Asia-Pacific innovation.
Third, strengthen the civil society-state partnership model. Rather than viewing civil society organisations as either implementers or critics, successful WPS programming treats them as essential bridges between communities and policymaking processes.
Fourth, concentrate resources strategically rather than spreading them globally. This criticism about Canadian contributions being “more flag waving than substantive” should prompt hard choices about where Canada can genuinely add value versus where it’s simply maintaining presence. This could mean prioritizing partnerships where local actors are actively seeking Canada’s specific expertise rather than passively accepting available funding, and investing in south-south learning networks that reduce dependency on traditional donor relationships.
Finally, build explicit resilience against political backlash by embedding WPS principles into broader institutional frameworks. The Japanese model of integrating gender perspectives into disaster response and the Philippine approach of connecting WPS to climate security offer templates worth adapting.
A Moment of Opportunity
The new government inherits a unique moment in the Asia-Pacific WPS landscape. Regional institutions have reached a critical threshold of resilience—strong enough to weather external political shifts while remaining open to genuine partnership.
The present moment creates space for Canada to enhance regional engagement through equitable partnerships centred on sustained institutional support. The question isn’t whether Canada can afford to invest deeply in WPS in the Asia-Pacific—it’s whether Canada can afford not to learn from a region that’s increasingly setting the standard for WPS implementation.
The path forward requires moving beyond the donor-recipient mindset toward authentic partnership with countries that are becoming WPS exporters themselves while continuing to develop their own capacities. The Asia-Pacific’s transformation offers a roadmap, but only if Canada approaches it with the intellectual humility to learn rather than simply teach.
For a more comprehensive analysis of WPS implementation in the Asia-Pacific region and its implications for Canadian policy, readers are encouraged to consult the full chapter, entitled, “Sustaining WPS Achievements in the Asia-Pacific in the Face of U.S. and Canadian Shifting Priorities,” once published.
The views in this blog are those of the authors only and do not necessarily represent those of the WPSN-C or its membership.
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