Council of Councils
Think Global Health
Since 2000, 115 governments have made formal commitments to increase women’s participation in mitigating and resolving conflict and reducing violence against women and girls. The U.S. government was the first to pass a law to codify its obligations in 2017. Support for the WPS Act has recently been called into question, despite a record of substantial achievement since its passage. Continued implementation of the law aligns with the current administration’s goals of ending wars and reducing violence, and U.S. leadership can galvanize increased international action on this front.
Centers & Programs
Women and Foreign Policy Program
The Women and Foreign Policy program analyzes how elevating the status of women and girls advances U.S. foreign policy objectives, including global peace, prosperity, and security. The program informs policymakers, opinion leaders, and the public about issues related to gender equality and U.S. foreign policy through scholarship, roundtable discussions, briefings, and the Women Around the World blog.
129 million girls remain out of school
Featured
Renowned Japan expert Sheila Smith discusses the country’s historic election of its first female prime minister, her politics, her likely policies, and their impact on women.
A majority of voters in Moldova reaffirmed the country’s desire to break free of Russian interference and continue its path to join the European Union. The victory for reformist leader Maia Sandu, who was reelected president last year, represents one of Europe’s signal successes as Moscow seeks to intimidate and divide the continent.
Find out where women around the world wield political power—and why it matters.
In a conversation with Jill Dougherty, former CNN Moscow bureau chief and author of My Russia: What I Saw Inside the Kremlin, Linda Robinson, senior fellow for women and foreign policy at CFR, discusses Russia’s evolution under President Vladimir Putin, including President Putin's impact on youth, women, the media, and other groups, as well as the impact of the war in Ukraine.
Women and Foreign Policy Program
Within days of taking office, the Trump Administration rescinded an executive order establishing the first-ever Gender Policy Council (GPC), a policy office in the White House that had been establish…
Two things emerged clearly from this week’s Copenhagen Democracy Summit, the eighth annual gathering convened by Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Women and Foreign Policy Program
Progress for women’s political leadership is stagnating around the world, alongside global democracy decline. In 2024, in the year of elections, only five women out of thirty-one presidential elections won their campaigns. In addition, U.S. voters elected fewer women to the House of Representatives than at any time in the last two decades. The nonpartisan organization RepresentWomen works in the United States and globally to expand women’s political participation and strengthen representative democracy. Linda Robinson, senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Cynthia Richie Terrell, executive director of RepresentWomen and co-founder of FairVote, discuss ongoing research on recent elections and how electoral rules and systems impact women’s political representation around the world.
Program Experts
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Digital tools have multiplied collective power around the world. Leaders must invest in sustaining it.
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Rachel Vogelstein and Meighan Stone chronicle the remarkable global impact of the #MeToo movement.
