Beijing+25

In 1995, 17,000 delegates and 30,000 activists from across the globe, streamed to Beijing to attend the fourth World Women’s Conference. This was one of the largest meetings to promote women’s rights ever held. Our first big project, as an organisation, was to organise a delegation of women to attend the civil society forum in Beijing ahead of the conference with the aim to bring in the intersectional dimension between gender and the environment. We organised events and demonstrations during the Huairou civil society forum with partners from, amongst others, Brazil, India, Kenya, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The outcome, the Beijing Platform for Action, remains one of the strongest commitments to women’s human rights within the scope of a a sustainable and peaceful world.

Now, almost 25 years later, we are appalled by a roll-back on women’s rights in many countries in the world, and attacks against women’s human rights and environmental defenders. In 2020, 25 years after the promise of Beijing, we will still not have achieved equality, and instead are facing increasing violence and misogynist populist governments. Whilst in 2020 we will achieve the 5-year mark of the Sustainable Development Goals and it’s goal 5 on achieving gender quality and the empowerment of all women and girls, we need to hold high the commitments of Beijing.

Civil society forum (28 Oct, Geneva)  – As the regional organising partner for Women’s Major Group, we will be co-facilitating the Civil Society Forum prior to the UNECE regional review meeting on Beijing+25. We are preparing this pre-forum together with a broad alliance of feminist and women’s rights organisations. It will be held on Monday, 28 October 2019, in Geneva. We will prepare common feminist priorities from the European, North American, Caucasus and the Central Asian regions. These priorities will feed into the shadow-reports on gender equality and the women’s rights situation in our region.

Beijing+25 Regional Review Meeting (29-30 Oct, Geneva) – The UN member state meeting provides a forum to review progress by governments on the Beijing commitments. We will co-facilitate the participation of civil society feminist organisations in the meeting. We will identify challenges in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and have speakers to present our priorities. The meeting will be held on 29-30 October 2019 in the Palais des Nations, Geneva, and is jointly organised by UNECE and the UN Women Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia.

Commission on the Status of Women (CSW64) (9-20 March 2020) – The main focus of the next CSW meeting will be on the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the 23rd special session of the General Assembly. The review will include an assessment of current challenges that affect the implementation of the Platform for Action and the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and its contribution towards the full realisation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Generation Equality Forums (Mexico on 7-8 May 2020 and France on 7-10 July 2020) – Will bring together the key priorities and recommendations from feminists around the world. These feminist recommendations will be presented to Heads of States at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2020.