There has been an increase of attention to the need for inclusion of women in peace and security processes since the passing of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000 and its introduction of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Donors, including the European Commission (EC), have been working over the last two decades to improve their WPS policy approaches and more recently their focus on gender-mainstreaming across preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) platforms. This paper highlights some practical challenges for implementation of high-level policy into on-the-ground programming and recommendations for meaningful gender-mainstreaming in the design, implementation and evaluation of P/CVE programming. Examining lessons learned from past programming helps to inform current policy conversations and improve P/CVE moving forward…