What I Brought Home from Malaysia

By Denise Viardo Koh, BSc, MD, CCFP, MPH, FRCPC, ACBOM

WPSN-C offers our congratulations to Malaysia on their recent launch of its National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2025-2030.

This past July, two WPSN-C members–Katrina Leclerc and Denise Viardo Koh–traveled to Malaysia at the invitation of Canada’s High Commission to Malaysia and the Malaysian Ministry of Women, Families and Community Development to share civil society network experiences in advocating for the advancement of WPS as Malaysia engaged in final preparations of their NAP.

In addition to Denise’s reflections below, Katrina was interviewed on the topic of “Peacebuilding and How Capitalism & Imperialism Undermines Feminism” while in Malaysia.

On July 21 and 22, 2025, as the second (of 2!) delegates invited by the High Commission of Canada in Malaysia (HCCM), I attended a cultural exchange and WPS training in Kuala Lumpur with Malaysian civil society representatives and government officials as they worked on their first National Action Plan (NAP) for Women, Peace, and Security. Several short months ago, I would not have understood the above statement, and if someone said it to me, I would have used Google to fill in the blanks.

Q:  What is a Filipina-Chinese Canadian public and occupational health doc from the prairies doing at this fancy-sounding once-in-a-lifetime event? 

A:  Absorbing every second of it!

My path to this point has been colourful. I have always been vocal with the courage (audacity) to fight for the underdog. Being trained to assess and manage risk not only heightened my tendency to see gaps and how to fix them, but also my drive to bridge them, along with the angst I’d feel seeing these inequities worsen and become entrenched. I spent 15 years working as a government-employed doctor, but the longer I worked “in the system” the more frustrated I got with the decisions being made that would clearly lead to worse health outcomes for those I served and the bigger disquiet I felt not being able to influence those decisions. I became disillusioned with the medical system in general—while many aspects have the capacity for excellence, overall, I feel what we see is broken.

This disillusionment in Medicine is not uncommon. The running “joke” is that you can tell where doctors are on the career continuum by their level of cynicism. This is soul-sucking, survival-mode work, and black humour is our first line of therapy.

The mouthy angry brown woman trope I’d worked so hard to dodge at work does lend well to community advocacy (not just ulcers), which I came to learn is civil society organization or work. I increasingly focused on “heart work” which most often gets compensated in karma dollars rather than the real ones. 

Just over a year ago, a group of us women docs in Manitoba got together to create our first Manitoba Branch of the Federation of Medical Women of Canada. I took on the President role as we got ourselves organized and started learning the ins and outs of this 100-year-old advocacy organization touted as the voice of women physicians in Canada. I became FMWC Ombudswoman, then the Chair for the national WPS Committee. Being relatively new to the WPS space, I was both floored and thrilled to be selected as a delegate for this opportunity, representing FMWC as well as the Women, Peace and Security Network of Canada (WPSN-C), of which FMWC is a member.

An essential WPS concept is women’s equal participation and inclusion in all levels of peace and security, including leadership positions. This is a UN-protected principle enshrined in legislation that the countries that signed UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR)1325 in 2000 committed to actioning. Actioning starts with creating a NAP; Canada is on its third iteration. This trip is about Canada assisting Malaysia in creating its first one, led by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (MWFCD). On the first day, we held a Civil Society Roundtable on WPS, focusing on strengthening CSO Roles in Malaysia’s WPS NAP. We reviewed with CSO representatives the basics and history of the WPS agenda and shared Canada’s learnings from the NAP creation process and WPS work. We held group discussions on how participants’ work aligns with the WPS agenda. An MWFCD representative shared the first draft of the Malaysian WPS NAP, and participants gave detailed feedback and asked important questions for MWFCD to consider. I shared some key learnings from my experiences with community advocacy work—both from the CSO perspective and as a former public servant. I stressed the importance of creating a network, which starts with fostering relationships on the ground and recommended that those in the room start forming their own network immediately. On the second day, we spent the morning with a number of Malaysian government representatives to give insights on cross-ministry collaboration and discussed how they could implement the WPS agenda in their respective ministries.

In addition to reinforcing my grasp of WPS 101, here are some key takeaways I took from this incredible mission:

1. We should consider combining Health and WPS forces to strengthen our respective positions and further our cause:  
   • I’ve been racking my brain to make the connection between Health and WPS. But it’s actually really simple:  you can’t optimize health and wellness without first ensuring peace and security. On Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, safety and security are fundamental once urgent physiological needs are met. 
   • And the women angle—well, women and girls in society almost always bear the brunt of any conflict, system failure, or crisis, and their involvement in addressing those problems (and any work/field) is not just the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do. You get much better outcomes. When women are included in a peace process, the peace agreement that results is 20 percent more likely to last at least two years. If women participate in a peace agreement, it is 35% more likely to last for 15 years. We need a “critical mass” of at least 30% of decision-making tables represented by women to see their influence. 
   • We see parallels in Medicine too—women are as good as, if not better doctors than, men. Studies show that hospitalized patients treated by female doctors have, on average, lower mortality and readmission rates compared to those treated by male doctors. These differences are linked to varying practice patterns, such as greater adherence to clinical guidelines, more preventive care, and improved communication by female physicians. Despite this, women doctors are paid less than their male colleagues…and are more likely to burn out.
   • In Public Health, we know that the less inequities in a population leads to a healthier population overall, so for the Haves in society, having a little less so that the Have Nots have more leads to not only healthier Have Nots, but also healthier Haves.  Therefore, aside from the ethical reasons to minimize inequities, there is a compelling reason to even the playing field, even if you own the game. “Meeting those you are trying to serve where they’re at” is the foundational public health ideology that Harm Reduction is based on and also underlies successful WPS initiatives.
   • The health care system is so complicated with federal/provincial/territorial (FPT) power dynamics, jurisdictional misalignment, too many sub-systems, regulatory bodies, and stakeholders with often conflicting goals, that ensuring accountability to get better health outcomes is extremely difficult. It is a beast—a very expensive one. The Health portfolio consistently gets the majority of allocated government dollars and has already been legitimized and prioritized.
   • If we considered optimum peace, security, health, and wellness together as the carrot, UNSCR 1325 (and other Security Council resolutions) could be the stick, and a NAP through a health lens could be the roadmap. Health care could benefit from embracing WPS principles even though they may seem too esoteric and high-level. WPS could benefit from the resources, legitimacy, recognition and political will attached to Health. 
2. Ground-level connection and meaningful dialogue are vital in the advocacy and system innovation space. Gap-closing relies on the powers that be, which include our male allies, so ensuring we either have a spot at the table, have the ability to provide input via established channels of communication, or are well represented by our government officials, determines our success. All options rely on connections and relationships.
   • I sensed some CSO frustration on not being included in initial government consultations, but expectations must be managed—another reason why establishing a network is so crucial. From my public service experience, I know that consultation exclusions are commonplace, and the “system” often operates far below what the public thinks and expects. Omissions could have been a result of ignorance of CSOs’ existence, incompetence, poor planning rather than intentional. Key infrastructure and positions may not yet be in place, and departments may not know what other departments are doing due to siloes, lack of policy, communication problems, etc. Overlap of roles and gaps are common. In addition to core tasks, public servants must also remain accountable and able to defend their actions—adding more burden on a stretched-thin budget. CSOs must proactively ensure they are on the government’s radar and reach out early. Public system change is a long game, necessitating preparation for feast or famine progress and an opportunistic approach. I saw how the disconnect between the government and our public during the pandemic contributed to the disinformation campaigns and worse outcomes, which could have been mitigated had we fostered better relationships and trust pre-pandemic. 
   • Open dialogue within government units is necessary. Departments often require buy in from other departments, so starting with an all-of-government approach is ideal. The Day 2 officials seemed hesitant to engage in the discussion. This may have been due to cultural differences, communication difficulties, or perhaps more time was needed to formulate fullsome responses. This underscores the need for cohesion with all stakeholders, particularly for this type of work.  
3. Dedicated champions accelerate progress. The team I got to work with were rockstars! Former WPS Ambassador Jacqueline O’Neill and HCCM Senior Trade Commissioner Eric Pelletier kicked off the session with warm greetings and inspiring words. WPSN-C Chair Katrina Leclerc was on point as she brilliantly condensed WPS history and basics in an easy-to-understand and engaging manner, tailoring her speaking points with the right sensitivity and candour to the different audiences. She came from a similar stint in Korea and was jetting to Singapore for another mission afterwards. Dr. Alan Okros is a leading expert on the evolution of women’s employment in the Canadian Armed Forces and assisted in the creation of Canada’s inaugural WPS NAP. He shared valuable insights from his unique perspective in EDI and military research and policy. HCC’s Sharmila Kulkarni and Alina Kwan were a delight to work with, ensuring the planning and logistics of the event and our stay ran smoothly. I was so honoured to share the space with “Team Canada!”  
4. Canada continues impactful humanitarian global initiatives and maintains its place as peacekeepers across the world. With all the rollbacks of women+’s rights occurring with our neighbours, polarization in our society’s psyche, and Canada’s worrisome rise of far right/anti-EDI/anti-woke sentiment and power, I have been in mourning. I needed reassurance that Canada is still the Canada I have always loved and bragged (internally, anything external would be un-Canadian!) about. I got to witness and be a part of our country doing another country a solid—in sharing a beautiful seed and some tips for Malaysia to consider. We were careful not to impose ourselves and our privilege onto a very different culture, religious affiliations, customs, way. We were quite aware that women’s positions, social standing, aspirations, experiences, resources, futures in Canada are vastly different from anywhere else in the world, and this exchange required utmost sensitivity and diplomacy. We were the perfect people for this, simply because we’re Canadian. Despite this mission’s brevity, it has reset my worldview and renewed my deep pride in the country I call home.

The views in this blog are those of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the WPSN-C or its membership.