The objective of the Forum is to assimilate all stakeholders committed to gender equality to review progress and offer concrete solutions to accelerate progress in this last decade for attaining Sustainable Development Goals.
The Generation Equality Forum is a global call for urgent action by governments, UN System, the private sector, and civil society, for much-needed financial investments and policy commitments to co-create feminist futures with young leadership. This collective call seeks to dismantle barriers to women’s progress through working across generations and sectors on priority issues.
Organised in two parts – Mexico (29-31 March 2021) and Paris (30 June-2 July 2021) – eighty-five countries and 10,000 participants came together at the Mexico Forum to mark the once-in-a-decade opportunity; imagine young feminist movements with alternative and determined visions for future. What started with the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action in 1995 continues to grow with a new generation of activists demanding commitment to long-term change for gender equity, justice and rights.
«As articulated by UN Women’s Executive Director Madam Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, “No one can wait any longer. With the driving energy of a new vast and diverse population of feminists across multiple sectors, we can and must achieve gender equality in our generation. The Generation Equality Forum will help us turn the promise of the Beijing Platform for Action into a lived global reality through smart, targeted and financed actions that deliberately break the old barriers and cumulatively entrench human rights.”»
France as co-chair
In the run-up to the Generation Equality Forum, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Minister Delegate for Gender Equality, Diversity and Equal Opportunities collaborated with the Open Diplomacy Institute to organise a Grand Tour comprising 14 consultative conferences organised in higher education institutions across France to mobilise local stakeholders and encourage citizens to participate in French feminist diplomacy.
French local governments also participated in the Forum by organising events promoting gender equality. The Ambassador and Secretary General of the Generation Equality Forum, Delphine O, participated in a panel on the action of local governments, mobilized for gender equality here and across the world with other important actors of decentralized cooperation, who discussed the importance of decentralized cooperation, gender-sensitive budgeting and economic and social policies applied at the local level to advance gender equality – particularly within the framework of the French feminist diplomacy strategy and of the Generation Equality Forum. Local charities and associations were also invited to register their activities and feed the programme.
The Generation Equality Forum was an official partner of the Paris Peace Forum and was selected as one of the 100 “Solutions for Peace”.
Generation Equality Forum in Australia
In Australia, the Embassy of France and Mexico convened the Generation Equality Forum (GEF), co-hosted with UN Women. This landmark Forum brought together global partners, activists and allies to define and commit to concrete actions that will accelerate gender equality.
Focussing on the coalition theme of Economic Justice and Rights, our deputy head of mission, Ms Julie Le Saos and Mr Eduardo Martinez Curiel, Deptuty Head of Mission of the Embassy of Mexico shared their insights from the GEF in Mexico and plans for the forthcoming GEF in Paris. The panel of experts highlighted what is working, and how we build new economic and social systems that include, and work, for everyone. Speakers included Delphine O, Ambassador, Secretary General of the Generation Equality Forum; Julie-Ann Guivarra, Australia’s Ambassador for Gender Equality and Bettina Baldeschi, CEO IWDA, among others.
Generation Equality and UN Women:
In the powerful words of young feminists and change-makers across the globe, women and girls in all their diversities came together at the UN Conference in June 2021, to demand the realisation of an ambitious agenda set forth in the Young Feminist Manifesto at the Generation Equality Forum (GEF or the Forum).
