Beijing25+

 

In 1995, 17 000 delegates and 30 000 activists from all over the world went to Beijing to attend the Fourth World Conference on Women. This was one of the biggest meetings to promote women's rights ever held. Despite some progress, real change has been slow and, to date, no country has achieved gender equality.  

 

WO=MEN Dutch Gender Platform is committed, on behalf of and in cooperation with its members and partners, to promoting gender equality and women's rights in international processes such as Beijing25+. 

 

 

In 2021, various activities are taking place in the context of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The Generation Equality Forum (GEF) is the name for two global meetings for gender equality. This process is initiated by UN Women and co-organised by the governments of Mexico and France and with active involvement of civil society.  

 

These meetings aim to bring together different actors, including young people and activists but also philanthropic institutions and corporations, to develop a new feminist agenda. And to develop a progressive partnership in the field of gender equality. 

The Forum launched a 5-year action journey to achieve irreversible progress towards gender equality, founded on a series of concrete, ambitious and transformative actions, including $40 Billion in financial commitments. The results of these forums are expected to be presented to governments in the United Nations general Assembly (UNGA) in September 2021.

 

 

As part of the Generation Equality Forum process, six thematic action coalitions have been created. Over the next five years (2021 - 2026) these Action Coalitions have a responsibility to bring about concrete and sustainable change in the field of women's rights and gender equality. These action coalitions are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  

 

The six thematic Generation Equality Action Coalitions are:

Attention to and engagement of girls and young women has been taken up as a cross-cutting issue.

 

 

 

 

 

Each of these Action Coalitions has developed its own priority actions for the coming years. These draft priorities are collected in the Global Acceleration Plan for Gender Equality. This feminist roadmap was presented in the Generation Equality Forum Mexico and finalized in the Paris Forum.

 

Several NGOs in the Netherlands working for women's rights and gender equality are involved in one or more action coalitions, either themselves or through their headquarters or local partners. WO=MEN organises knowledge exchanges between its members and civil servants that are engaging in these processes.

 

 

 

The Generation Equality Forum process aims to drive commitments by governments, women’s, feminist and youth-led organizations, international organizations, philanthropy and the private sector to achieve sustainable change towards gender equality.

 

If you wish, your organization can also become a commitment maker in this process.

 

Commitments can be comprised of financial, advocacy, policy or programmatic deliverables. In the Mexico Forum, several financial commitments were made such as by Women Moving Millions, a global network of individual philanthropists, who committed to raise 100 million USD by Paris to support the Action Coalition agenda. Read more about the outcomes of the Paris Forum here.