Local Diplomacy Lab: Women, Peace and Security 

The Benson-Bertsch Center for International Trade and Security’s Local Diplomacy Lab conducts research into the ways in which local actors, including subnational entities such as cities and civil society organizations, engage in international diplomacy. Current projects in the lab are focused on global localization efforts towards achieving the goals of the United Nation’s landmark resolution on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). In the 25 years since the UN Security Council’s unanimous passage of UNSCR1325 on WPS (and subsequent related resolutions), over 100 countries have adopted National Action Plans and nearly a dozen regional organizations have adopted plans to implement WPS. More recent efforts have focused on the development and adoption of implementation plans for subnational entities, however there is no comprehensive dataset on these local movements. Students in the lab are collecting data on these global local efforts and conducting a variety of research projects analyzing their impact.

The research in this lab was made possible by the support of the Benson-Bertsch Center for International Trade and Security and a Mellon Foundation "Building Southern Intersectional Futures" grant from the UGA Institute for Gender and Women's Studies.