World Leaders Champion Women's Empowerment & Gender Equality

• 2025 marks important milestones in women's rights and gender equality
• It is 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action
• These achievements are achieved despite a global backlash, threatening progress achieved for girls and women

The year 2025 is a momentous time for women’s rights and for gender equality, as it will be the thirtieth anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the fifteenth anniversary of UN Women, and now the eightieth anniversary of the United Nations.

These markers are situated in a world of regression, as women's and girls' rights, opportunities, and lives are being eroded.

In this light, international leaders came together at the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the 30th Anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, during UNGA80 High-Level Week, to observe the Beijing Declaration as a charter for gender equality, and reaffirm that the rights of women and girls are still on the world stage.

During the event, representatives of 109 countries committed to undertake 212 national actions to drive the Beijing+30 Agenda, offering one of the biggest multilateral commitments to girls and women in three decades.

Sima Bahous, UN Women Executive Director, has said that governments must go beyond rhetoric to take action in the form of policies, budgets and programmes promoting gender equality - which she noted is a crucial catalyst for global progress.

155 speakers participated, of which 15 were Heads of State, 10 Heads of Government (eight of which were female from Suriname, Switzerland, Namibia, Peru, Slovenia, the Marshall Islands, North Macedonia and Barbados) and 77 Ministers. Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan and Her Majesty Queen Mathilde of Belgium also spoke to the assembly.

António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, reaffirmed the necessity to protect equal opportunities and rights for girls and women as part of building peace and prosperity and ensuring decent development for all. He urged all of us to continue poisoning the ambitions of the Beijing Declaration, as leaders.

Her Excellency, Annalena Baerbock, the newly elected President of the General Assembly and the 5th woman to do so, paid her respects to the women who created the Beijing Declaration. She stated that while there were advancements, gender equality continues to be a work in progress for full and equal participation.