Mexico hosts 3rd Ministerial Feminist Foreign Policy Conference

From 1-3 of July 2024, Mexico hosted the 3rd Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP), following the 1st conference in Germany in 2022 and the 2nd in the Netherlands in 2023. The conference was chaired by the Secretary of State (Minister) of the Foreign Affairs, Alicia Barcena, who called on countries to “take bold action so that gender-equality becomes the norm and not the exception”. The conference was co-organised by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNWOMEN and the Mexican Institute on Women, INMUJERES, and the first FFP conference to take place in the Global South. From the 50 Member States that had registered 39 sent high level representatives, including at Ministerial level, as well as 100 civil society organisation representatives, including our executive director Sascha Gabizon.

Alicia Barcena with the civil society participants including WECF, FEMNET and FEIM at the 3rd FFP conference (credit Ministry Foreign Affairs Mexico).

The discussions with Ministers and civil society focused on how to close the gender gap, we cannot wait another 150 years, and this is why gender-equality should be core for the Summit of the Future taking place at the UN General Assembly in September 2024. The Future has to be Feminist…. if not, we are only going to go backwards, not forwards.

Hold the line on gender equality

In the interview of WECF’s Sascha Gabizon by the Mexican Ministry (see here), she confirms that Feminist Policies are about democracy, freedom and justice. And that is crucial that democratic states are standing up strongly for the rights of women in all their diversity – rural women, indigenous women, queer women – because unfortunately there are more and more countries government by far-right authoritarian regimes that are rolling back our human rights.

Our regional feminist partners from FEMNET Africa (see interview here) and FEIM Latin America as well as land-rights advocates from Landesa (see here) and climate advocates from WEDO, had joined us at the 3rd FFP conference, speaking in the panels that addressed Feminist Sustainable Development, Feminist Financing for Development, Women Peace and Security, global governance on digital technology and climate change and the role of feminist civil society organisations. Bridget Burns of WEDO highlighted the importance of gender-responsive climate finance and the need to invest in Gender Just Climate Solutions, which WECF coordinates jointly, see here.

Stand-up against anti-rights regimes

“We need FFP countries to stand together and call out authoritarian regimes that are passing ‘foreign agent’ laws to silence and persecute women’s rights organisations”, said Sehnaz Kiymaz (here) of the Women’s Major Group.

This was strongly supported by Maria Pejcinovuc Buric of the Council of Europe, who in response are passing policies to counter gender-disinformation, sexism and online hate, noting that following their study, 58% of women suffer online violence. See the CoE’s work to combat and prevent sexism here.

Sascha Gabizon said we need to understand how the anti-rights groups are funded, and that there is a close link to fossil fuel incomes and tax evasion, we need a global tax reform. And she called for climate-safe gender-just economic models that through fair trade and investment policies address the underlying structural barriers to women’s equal rights, including land rights, see here. We must make sure that major financial flows, such as climate funding, are gender-responsive, see also our project on Gender and Climate with support of the German Ministry of Development Cooperation (here).

Sascha Gabizon speaking at the FFP conference

Liberia’s vice minister Deweh Gray also called for tax reform and debt cancelation, so as to be able to create fiscal space for country’s like hers, to invest in social services and care economy, to take the burden of unpaid work from women’s shoulders (here).

Result of the 3rd Feminist Foreign Policy conference

Alicia Barcena, as chair of the FFP conference, presented a common declaration (here), which was endorsed by 20 UN Member States to present to the Summit of the Future, including Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, France, Germany, Honduras, Ireland, Lithuania, Mongolia, Norway, New Zealand, Romania, Slovenia and Uruguay. They confirm that they will adopt Feminist Foreign Policies (FFP) and/or strengthen gender equality in in their foreign policies to comply with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially SDG 5, on achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women, young women, and girls, in all their diversity, from a gender-transformative approach (see also here).

The coalition of FFP countries plan to host a high-level event at the upcoming UN General Assembly in September 2024, and France has already invited to the 4th FFP conference to take place in Paris in June 2025.

The signatories of the declaration commit to the following 10 FFP action points:

1. Advance gender-responsive reforms, to reshape financial and economic systems to prioritize sustainability, climate justice, and peace and achieve economies that focus on the well-being of all people, in particular, those in situations of vulnerabilities;
2. Design gender-responsive fiscal and budgetary policies that address the rights of all women, young women and girls, and include them in decision-making;
3. Reaffirm the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, mediation efforts and peacebuilding, and stressing the importance of their full, equal and meaningful participation in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, as well as the need to increase their role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution;
4. Advance in the elimination of the gender digital divide, guaranteeing for women, youth, and girls, equality of opportunities, conditions, and treatment in access, use, and appropriation of technology, as well as the promotion of women’s skills and leadership and the incorporation of the gender perspective in science, technology and digital cooperation and intersectional approaches that allow dismantling discriminatory biases and generating inclusive, responsible, safe and transparent digital systems;
5. Incorporate the voices of youth in decision-making, particularly young women and girls, including their meaningful participation in the design, implementation, and evaluation of foreign and development policies with a gender perspective and with an intersectional, intergenerational, intercultural, and human rights approach;
6. Promote, through foreign policy, conditions that allow women, young women, and girls to participate fully, freely, and effectively in public life, as well as to establish policies to eradicate gender stereotypes, patriarchal patterns, and all forms of discrimination and sexual and gender-based violence in public – including all sectors of foreign policies– and private life, online and offline, highlighting the importance of promoting comprehensive global policies and approaches based on human rights in favor of decent work, the care economy, access to education and gender equality;
7. Incorporate intercultural, and intergenerational perspectives in the design, implementation, and evaluation of feminist foreign policies, as well as other commitments related to the promotion, protection, and guarantee of the rights of women, young women and girls, and their fully, freely, and effective participation in public life.
8. Promote South-South and triangular cooperation, as well as multilateral actions that favor eradicating the structural barriers of gender inequality, all forms of discrimination and gender-based violence;
9. Establish and strengthen mechanisms for participation, support and collaboration with civil society, especially women’s and feminists’ organizations, women’s human rights defenders and movements and grassroots organizations, for the design, implementation and evaluation of gender perspectives in foreign policies and Feminist Foreign Policies, promoting the significant participation of youth and their integration in the decision-making processes;
10. Continue joint cooperation and collaboration within the framework of the United Nations System and other regional and international forums and diverse initiatives in these contexts, to enhance our efforts towards substantive gender equality, putting rights and participation of women, young women, and girls at the center, within the framework of the Summit of the Future and mainly in the implementation of the Pact for the Future

Other relevant documents, see the CONCORD Europe publication on intersectional feminist policy making, here.

The Minister of Chile (in red) and representatives of WECF, FEIM Latin America and Young Feminist Europe