# WPS Scenario Taxonomy for Benchmark Development

**Version:** v6 (August 2026). Sections I–V are unchanged from the version used to build the v5.1 scenario set; Section VI has been remapped to the v6 blueprint, and Sections VII–VIII are new.

**Source:** *Just the Facts: A Selected Annotated Bibliography to Support Evidence-Based Policymaking on Women, Peace and Security* (Our Secure Future / One Earth Future, 2019)

**Purpose:** Provide a structured taxonomy of WPS topic areas, grounded in the empirical research literature, to guide the creation of diverse and representative benchmark scenarios for evaluating AI performance on Women, Peace & Security tasks.

**How to read this document.** This taxonomy is the structure the benchmark scenarios were written against, so that coverage of the WPS field would follow the research literature rather than the drafter's intuition. Every scenario maps to a named node in Section VI; the areas the scenario set does *not* reach are named in Section VIII; and Section VII records what practitioner review of this taxonomy changed, and what it did not. For how the scenarios were produced from it — including where AI was used and what human review followed — see the [benchmark methodology](https://wpsleaderboard.ai/methodology.html).

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## What the taxonomy review changed, and what it did not

Five reviewers commented on this taxonomy in June 2026. One change reached the scenarios directly: reviewers argued that "Countering Violent Extremism" carries the baggage of a particular 2014–2020 funding moment and has been critiqued within the WPS field for securitising community programming, and two CVE scenarios were consequently merged into a single community-based violence prevention scenario. A second change reached the scoring criteria: reviewers observed that "gender" was functioning throughout as shorthand for "women", which prompted an explicit scope statement anchored to UNSCR 1325, stating for each criterion whether it means women and girls specifically or gender more broadly.

The remainder of the feedback asked for coverage this taxonomy's 2019 source cannot supply — technology-facilitated gender-based violence, anti-gender movements and their links to authoritarianism, racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism, the influence of authoritarian states on women's political participation, and disinformation targeting women's agency. Meeting it requires new scenarios, and we did not write any for this version.

That was deliberate. This version's purpose was to isolate the effect of revised scoring criteria on a fixed scenario set; adding scenarios at the same time would have confounded that comparison and broken comparability with earlier runs. The uncovered areas are recorded in Section VIII and are the substance of the next version's evidence-base refresh.

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## I. GOVERNANCE

### 1.1 Political Representation & Participation
- Women's access to elected office and decision-making positions
- Barriers to candidacy (self-perceived qualifications, lack of encouragement, campaign financing)
- Descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation of women in legislatures
- Women's legislative effectiveness and policy priorities (health, education, social welfare)
- Women in ministerial cabinets and executive leadership
- Women's political participation in post-revolution/post-conflict transitions (e.g., Arab Spring)

**Scenario angles:** Gender quotas in post-conflict elections; women candidates facing intimidation; women's caucuses in new parliaments; women's political participation in conservative/religious contexts.

### 1.2 Gender Quotas & Affirmative Action
- Reserved seats, party quotas, and legislative quotas
- Impact of quotas on women's long-term political leadership
- Quota adoption during post-conflict reconstruction (Rwanda, Afghanistan)
- Acceleration effects vs. trade-off/stigmatization effects
- Electoral financing as an alternative to quotas
- Quota withdrawal and sustained effects

**Scenario angles:** Designing quota systems for transitional governments; evaluating quota effectiveness; addressing tokenism in quota implementation.

### 1.3 Corruption & Good Governance
- Relationship between women in government and perceived/actual corruption
- Gender, institutional context, and corruption tolerance
- Gendered access to patronage networks and service provision
- Women's role in anti-corruption efforts in democracies vs. autocracies

**Scenario angles:** Gender-sensitive anti-corruption programming; women's exclusion from informal governance networks; gendered impacts of corruption on service delivery.

### 1.4 Gender Equality as a Predictor of State Behavior
- Correlation between gender equality and lower state aggression/militarism
- Women's status as an early-warning indicator of instability
- Gender gap in foreign policy attitudes (women less supportive of military force)
- Relationship between gender equality and human rights compliance
- Impact of security threats on women's political representation

**Scenario angles:** Early-warning analysis using gender indicators; advising on gender-sensitive national security policy; assessing state fragility through a gender lens.

### 1.5 National Action Plans (NAPs) on WPS
- Development, implementation, and monitoring of NAPs
- Common implementation challenges (funding, political will, localization)
- NAP impact on policy outcomes across countries
- Role of civil society in NAP advocacy and accountability

**Scenario angles:** Advising a government on NAP development; evaluating NAP implementation gaps; localizing NAP commitments to subnational contexts.

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## II. PEACEBUILDING & CONFLICT RESOLUTION

### 2.1 Women in Formal Peace Processes
- Women as negotiators, mediators, signatories, and witnesses
- Impact of women's participation on agreement durability (frequently cited as ~35% more likely to last 15 years)
- Women broadening peace agendas (housing, education, childcare, victims' rights)
- Models of inclusion: direct participation, observer status, consultations, inclusive commissions, mass action
- Quantity vs. quality of women's involvement

**Scenario angles:** Designing inclusive peace process structures; advising mediators on women's inclusion; analyzing why a peace agreement failed to include women.

### 2.2 Women in Informal Peace Processes
- Women's influence through parallel processes and back-channel negotiations
- Women working across ethnic, religious, and political divides
- Women's civil society coalitions for peace (Northern Ireland, South Africa, Guatemala, Colombia)
- Women as honest brokers building public support for peace
- Local-level peacebuilding: mediating disputes, creating safe spaces, reestablishing schools

**Scenario angles:** Supporting women's informal peace networks; connecting grassroots women's groups to formal negotiations; documenting women's informal peacebuilding contributions.

### 2.3 Ceasefires & Pre-Negotiation Phases
- Women's inclusion in ceasefire negotiations (South Sudan, Myanmar)
- Gender-specific provisions in ceasefire agreements
- Women on ceasefire monitoring teams
- Impact of women's exclusion on data collection (e.g., gender-based violence reporting)

**Scenario angles:** Advising on gender-inclusive ceasefire design; women's roles in ceasefire monitoring and verification.

### 2.4 Post-Conflict Governance & Constitution-Making
- Women's roles in drafting post-conflict constitutions
- Women driving regional/national gender equality policy after conflict
- Post-conflict gender quota adoption
- Women's participation in transitional justice and reconciliation
- Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) with gender perspectives

**Scenario angles:** Women's inclusion in constitutional reform processes; gender-sensitive DDR programming; transitional justice mechanisms addressing SGBV.

### 2.5 Sustaining Peace & Preventing Relapse
- Women's participation reducing risk of civil war relapse (cited as approaching zero relapse risk at ~35% female legislative representation)
- Women in nonviolent movements and conflict prevention
- Women as early-warning actors detecting escalation
- Gender equality as a predictor of peace durability

**Scenario angles:** Post-conflict stabilization with gender analysis; designing early-warning systems that incorporate women's networks; preventing conflict relapse through women's inclusion.

### 2.6 Gender, Security & State Behavior
- Gender equality correlated with lower interstate violence and militarism
- Women's physical security linked to state peacefulness
- Gender inequality as a predictor of intrastate conflict
- Human security frameworks vs. state-centric security approaches
- Gendered nationalism and its role in ethnic insurgencies

**Scenario angles:** Advising on human security policy with gender dimensions; analyzing gender inequality as a conflict driver; gender-sensitive threat assessments.

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## III. PEACE & SECURITY OPERATIONS

### 3.1 Women in Peacekeeping
- Impact of female peacekeepers on operational effectiveness
- Female peacekeepers' access to local women and communities
- Mixed-gender units vs. all-female units (mixed units more effective)
- Women peacekeepers as role models in host nations
- Recruitment, retention, and deployment challenges for female peacekeepers
- Critical mass of 30% female peacekeepers reducing SGBV by peacekeeping forces

**Scenario angles:** Designing gender-balanced peacekeeping deployments; addressing barriers to women's recruitment in troop-contributing countries; female engagement teams in conservative contexts.

### 3.2 Gender Perspectives in Military Operations
- Gender analysis enhancing situational awareness and intelligence
- Female soldiers improving force protection and community trust
- Gender-sensitive approaches in Provincial Reconstruction Teams (Afghanistan)
- Consequences of gender blindness in military operations (e.g., Coalition Forces in Iraq)
- Gender training for military personnel (gaps in addressing masculinity)

**Scenario angles:** Integrating gender advisors into military planning; gender-blind operational failures and lessons learned; designing gender training for deployed forces.

### 3.3 Women in Policing & Security Sector Reform
- Female police officers and reduced excessive force complaints
- Women police responding more effectively to domestic violence and SGBV
- Women in community policing building trust with local populations
- Gender mainstreaming in security sector reform (political, institutional, economic, societal dimensions)
- Peacekeeping missions catalyzing gender balance reforms in host countries

**Scenario angles:** Community policing initiatives integrating women officers; security sector reform with gender quotas; women's roles in post-conflict police forces.

### 3.4 DDR with Gender Perspectives
- Women ex-combatants (10–23% of fighting forces across conflicts)
- Gender-sensitive eligibility criteria, facilities, and reintegration programming
- Women's roles in disarmament (e.g., gun collection, locating hidden caches)
- Stigma and security risks for women ex-combatants
- Demining and gender (fields vs. roads)

**Scenario angles:** Reintegration of women ex-combatants; gender-sensitive DDR facility design; addressing stigma against women associated with armed groups.

### 3.5 Operational Effectiveness & Gender
- Gender perspectives improving information gathering and intelligence
- Enhanced credibility and force acceptance through women's inclusion
- Women influencing the conflict narrative
- Moderating political and religious extremism
- Using gender norms to engage informants
- Strengthening capacities of government partners

**Scenario angles:** Operational planning with gender analysis; leveraging women's networks for situational awareness; gender-sensitive engagement strategies.

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## IV. COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM (CVE) & COUNTERTERRORISM

### 4.1 Women Detecting & Preventing Radicalization
- Women (especially mothers) detecting early signs of radicalization
- Mothers' unique perspectives on why children radicalize
- Women building resilience in homes and communities against extremism
- "Mothers Schools" and similar programs training women to counter radicalization
- Women providing counternarratives in the home

**Scenario angles:** Community-based CVE programs leveraging mothers' networks; training women to detect radicalization indicators; women-led deradicalization initiatives.

### 4.2 Women's Roles in CVE Programming
- Women recruited for operational CVE tasks (e.g., checkpoint searches, intelligence gathering)
- "Daughters of Iraq" and similar programs
- Mainstreaming gender into CVE operations (Nigeria CJTF example)
- Women's empowerment as a strategy to reduce recruitment and radicalization
- Reaching out to mothers and wives of insurgents for extraction and reintegration

**Scenario angles:** Designing gender-inclusive CVE programs; women's operational roles at checkpoints and in intelligence; engaging women in deradicalization of family members.

### 4.3 Gender & CVE Policy
- Existing CVE policies devaluing women's rights
- Counterterrorism strategies that instrumentalize women or increase women's insecurity
- Criticisms of strategies that perpetuate gender stereotypes
- Need for CVE policies that treat women's rights as a cornerstone of peace
- Religious extremism targeting women and women mobilizing in response

**Scenario angles:** Reviewing CVE policy for gender sensitivity; avoiding instrumentalization of women in CVE; gender impact assessments of counterterrorism strategies.

### 4.4 Women as Perpetrators of Violent Extremism
- Women joining armed/extremist groups for ideological reasons, escape from patriarchy, or empowerment
- Motivations: revenge, redemption, relationships, respect
- Gendered recruitment strategies by extremist organizations
- Women's multifaceted roles (not mutually exclusive: peacemaker and perpetrator)

**Scenario angles:** Analyzing gendered recruitment by extremist groups; rehabilitation programs for women who participated in violent extremism; avoiding assumptions about women's roles in conflict.

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## V. CROSS-CUTTING THEMES

### 5.1 Intersectionality
- Gender intersecting with ethnicity, displacement, age, disability, religion, class
- Indigenous women, displaced women, widows, caregivers as distinct subgroups
- Avoiding homogeneous treatment of "women" as a category

### 5.2 Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in Conflict
- Conflict-related sexual violence
- GBV at aid distribution points and displacement camps
- Domestic violence escalation in post-conflict settings
- GBV as a security threat requiring operational response

### 5.3 Language, Culture & Access Barriers
- Multilingual communication challenges in peace/security operations
- Cultural norms affecting women's participation
- Religion as both barrier and enabler of women's political engagement
- Trust deficits between communities and external actors

### 5.4 Economic Dimensions
- Women's economic empowerment in post-conflict recovery
- Gender-sensitive budgeting and resource allocation
- Women's livelihoods and access to economic opportunities
- Funding gaps for WPS programming (only 2% of peace/security aid)

### 5.5 Data, Evidence & Accountability
- Lack of sex-disaggregated data in security institutions
- Need for gender-sensitive monitoring and evaluation
- Accountability mechanisms for WPS commitments
- Evidence-based vs. rights-based arguments for WPS

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## VI. MAPPING TO BENCHMARK SCENARIOS (v6)

The v6 scenario set is the v5.1 set with the two CVE scenarios merged into one (see Section VII). Numbering is otherwise unchanged from v5.1, which is why there is no scenario 15; slugs were deliberately held stable so longitudinal comparisons with earlier runs remain valid.

### Base scenarios

| Scenario | ID | Tier | Primary Taxonomy Category |
|:---|:---|:---:|:---|
| DRC Community Consultations | 01 | T1 | II.2.1 Women in formal peace processes / II.2.2 Informal peace processes |
| Somalia Aid Distribution | 02 | T1 | III.3.5 Humanitarian operations / V.5.2 Protection from sexual violence |
| Bangladesh Community Policing | 03 | T1 | III.3.3 Security sector reform / community policing |
| Colombia FARC Reintegration | 04 | T1 | III.3.4 DDR / reintegration |
| Nigeria Borno IDP Protection | 05 | T1 | V.5.2 GBV in conflict / IDP protection |
| Yemen Peace Process Inclusion | 06 | T1 | II.2.1 Women in formal peace processes / mediation |
| Liberia Electoral Gender Quotas | 07 | T1 | I.1.2 Gender quotas / post-conflict elections |
| Mali Stabilization Force Gender Balance | 08 | T1 | III.3.1 Peacekeeping operations / gender-balanced deployment |
| Peace Negotiation Design | 09 | T2 | II.2.1 Women in formal peace processes |
| Post-Conflict Election Planning | 10 | T2 | I.1.1 Political representation & participation |
| Peacekeeping Force Deployment | 11 | T2 | III.3.1 Peacekeeping operations / gender-balanced deployment |
| Community-Based Violence Prevention Review | 12 | T2 | IV.4.3 CVE policy review, reframed toward community-based prevention / II.2.5 conflict prevention |
| Early Warning System Design | 13 | T2 | II.2.5 Early warning / conflict prevention |
| Post-Conflict Constitution Drafting | 14 | T2 | II.2.4 Post-conflict constitution-making / transitional justice |
| Security Sector Reform and Community Trust | 16 | T2 | III.3.3 Security sector reform / community policing |
| Sparse Intel Brief | 17 | T3 | II.2.5 Early warning / conflict prevention |
| Field Sitrep | 18 | T3 | II.2.5 Early warning / conflict prevention |
| Policy Brief Extract | 19 | T3 | I.1.5 NAP implementation / II.2.6 State behavior analysis |
| Intelligence Summary | 20 | T3 | II.2.6 State behavior / conflict dynamics |
| NAP Implementation Gap Analysis | 21 | T3 | I.1.5 NAP implementation gap analysis |
| Ceasefire Monitoring Report | 22 | T3 | II.2.3 Ceasefire monitoring |
| DDR Program Update | 23 | T3 | III.3.4 DDR program status |
| State Behavior Briefing | 24 | T3 | II.2.6 State behavior / conflict dynamics |

### Cue-stripped pairs (T1-neutral)

Four T1 scenarios were duplicated with all gender language removed, holding country and operational facts constant, to test what a system does unprompted. They inherit their source scenario's taxonomy node.

| Scenario | Source | Tier |
|:---|:---|:---:|
| Somalia Aid Distribution — cues removed | 02 | T1-neutral |
| Bangladesh Community Policing — cues removed | 03 | T1-neutral |
| Colombia FARC Reintegration — cues removed | 04 | T1-neutral |
| Nigeria Borno IDP Protection — cues removed | 05 | T1-neutral |

### Adversarial scenarios (T4)

These test whether a system pushes back on a request that, as framed, would undermine WPS objectives. They are anchored in operational topic areas but are designed around the request rather than the topic.

| Scenario | Tier | Topical Anchor |
|:---|:---:|:---|
| Budget Efficiency | T4 | V.5.4 Economic dimensions / resource allocation; I.1.5 NAP resourcing |
| Streamline Distribution | T4 | III.3.5 Humanitarian operations; V.5.2 GBV at distribution points |
| Streamline Patrols | T4 | III.3.1 Peacekeeping operations / III.3.3 community policing |

### Taxonomy Coverage Summary (v6)

Counts are by **primary taxonomy category** for the 23 base scenarios. Some scenarios cross-cut categories and are counted in each they primarily address.

| Category | v6 Count | Scenarios |
|:---|:---:|:---|
| I. GOVERNANCE | 4 | 07, 10, 19, 21 |
| II. PEACEBUILDING | 11 | 01, 06, 09, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24 |
| III. OPERATIONS | 7 | 02, 03, 04, 08, 11, 16, 23 |
| IV. CVE / PREVENTION | 1 | 12 |
| V. PROTECTION | 2 | 02, 05 |

Change from v5.1: CVE falls from 2 to 1 with the merge of scenarios 12 and 15.

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## VII. WHAT PRACTITIONER REVIEW CHANGED

This taxonomy was reviewed by five practitioners in June 2026, who left 40 comments on it. The scenarios and scoring criteria were separately reviewed by a practitioner panel, which submitted 109 comments and tracked edits.

**Acted on, in the scenarios.** The framing of "Countering Violent Extremism" as a category was challenged as carrying the baggage of a 2014–2020 funding moment, and as securitising community programming — a critique made from within the WPS field. Scenarios 12 and 15, both CVE policy reviews, were merged into a single community-based violence prevention scenario.

**Acted on, in the criteria.** Reviewers observed that "gender" was operating throughout the taxonomy as a synonym for "women", and asked whether the benchmark intends women and girls specifically or gender more broadly, including nonbinary and LGBTQ+ populations, and whether age is in scope. This produced an explicit scope statement anchored to UNSCR 1325, and per-criterion statements of which reading applies.

**Recorded, not acted on.** Reviewers also raised: that the taxonomy measures quantity of participation rather than quality of leadership and influence; that women's participation within conservative and right-wing political formations raises distinct questions of agency; and that the durability statistics in II.2.1 and II.2.5 may not hold for contemporary peace processes. These are open questions for the next revision, not settled positions.

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## VIII. COVERAGE GAPS

Two kinds of gap, kept separate because they have different causes and different remedies.

### A. Nodes in this taxonomy with no corresponding scenario

These are areas the 2019 evidence base covers and the scenario set does not reach.

1. **I.1.3 Corruption & good governance** — no scenario on gender-sensitive anti-corruption.
2. **III.3.2 Gender perspectives in military operations** — only obliquely covered by 08, which concerns gender-balanced *deployment*; no scenario tests gender advisors, gender analysis in operational planning, or gender-blind operational failure.
3. **IV.4.1 Detecting & preventing radicalization** — no scenario on women's role in early detection.
4. **IV.4.2 Women's operational roles in CVE** — no scenario on operational deployment such as checkpoint searches, intelligence gathering, or deradicalization outreach to families.
5. **IV.4.4 Women as perpetrators of violent extremism** — no scenario on gendered recruitment or the rehabilitation of women who participated.

### B. Areas the 2019 evidence base cannot cover

Identified by reviewers as significant bodies of research postdating the source bibliography. These are gaps in the taxonomy itself, not in its application, and closing them requires refreshing the evidence base rather than writing scenarios against the existing one.

1. **Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV)** — including its co-occurrence with physical and sexual violence, and misogynistic rhetoric online as a driver.
2. **Anti-gender movements and organised backlash** — and the documented links between anti-gender mobilisation and authoritarianism.
3. **Racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE)** — and the use of gender-inequality narratives as far-right ideological recruitment.
4. **Authoritarian state influence on women's political participation** — the effect of external authoritarian actors on domestic gender-equality outcomes, and the interaction with regime type.
5. **The information environment** — disinformation targeting women's agency and participation; access to independent journalism as a precondition for exposing corruption.
6. **Human rights as a cross-cutting frame** — raised as a missing spine across all categories.
7. **Economic and environmental dimensions as security issues** — including the SDGs and the Pact for the Future, and women's access to capital, boards and business leadership.
8. **Gender statistics and data infrastructure** — and the gendered aspects of emerging technologies as an area in its own right.
9. **Gender norms as distinct from gender-equality indicators** — masculinity and femininity as analytic categories, rather than structural measures alone.
10. **The enabling environment for participation** — childcare, parental leave and comparable policy levers, as distinct from formal quotas.

Items 1, 4 and 5 correspond to backlog items already scheduled for the next benchmark version.

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*Reviewers of this taxonomy are acknowledged in the benchmark package. Their comments are held with the project's review records and are not reproduced here.*