Mexico promotes feminist foreign policy to address global challenges

Mexico promotes feminist foreign policy to address global challenges

• The milestone III Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy is the first to be held in the global south.
• The meeting aims to open a dialogue that strengthens feminist foreign policy and promotes intergovernmental partnerships placing women and girls at the center of the international agenda.

The III Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy is being held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) from July 1-3 with the theme "Solutions for a Better Tomorrow." The conference was co-organized by the National Women's Institute (Inmujeres) and UN Women to exchange best practices that strengthen feminist foreign policies and to address common challenges.

The opening ceremony was led by Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena Ibarra; Inmujeres President Nadine Gasman Zylbermann; and the Regional Director of UN Women for the Americas and the Caribbean, María Noel Vaeza.

Forty foreign ministries are represented at the meeting, in addition to ministerial-level guests from Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, the European Union and the Council of Europe; deputy ministers and vice-ministers from Canada, Chile, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Liberia, Namibia and Spain, and more than 100 representatives of international agencies and national and international civil society organizations.

In her remarks, Secretary Bárcena said, "We have lived through many centuries of inequality [...] a world in which poverty and hunger have a woman's face. We are talking about an unsustainable world, a model that must be changed [...] In this world we need women's equality because we are half of humanity. At last the world has decided to address the issue of gender equality and open a much wider space for women's participation."

"Over the next three days, we have the joint responsibility to add concrete actions to this declaration, because it is about being able to translate feminist foreign policy [FFP] into concrete issues [...] we have to have specific tools to be able to build more solid, more stable, more sophisticated international regimes, and to include women in the peace processes."

"We must, once and for all, eliminate the glass ceilings [...] Men, women and all human beings are equal and deserve the same opportunities [...] Therefore, let's commit to substantive equality, let's move from equal opportunities to equal rights and results," she said.

Inmujeres President Nadine Gasman said, "Mexico's feminist foreign policy is a reflection of its humanism, which aims to achieve profound change in all areas of public life, including collaboration with the international community with a focus on social justice. For Inmujeres, participating in the FFP is a matter of the highest importance. It has allowed us to promote key issues for women's rights: the right to care, preventing violence against women, sexual and reproductive rights, and the promotion of their autonomy and freedom."

The conference seeks to open a dialogue that strengthens feminist foreign policy and promotes intergovernmental partnerships by placing women and girls at the center of the international agenda, in order to design and execute policies that comply with the international commitments and conventions on achieving substantive equality, the only way to further the integral development of nations.

These commitments include the Pact for the Future, which will be adopted at the upcoming Summit of the Future to be held in September, and key milestones in 2025 such as Beijing+30, the 25th anniversary of the landmark resolution 1325, the 4th International Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy, and the 16th Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will also be held in Mexico.

Regional Director María Noel Vaeza emphasized that "the Summit of the Future is an opportunity to build a more interconnected and supportive multilateralism, creating a future that is just, equitable, peaceful and sustainable for all women and girls."

Incorporating a gender perspective into foreign policy can also have an impact on the economy of the country that adopts it, added the UN Women regional director. "Feminist foreign policy is also a decision about trade, about investment and relations between nations and with the private sector."

This milestone third conference, following those held in Germany in 2022 and the Netherlands in 2023, is the first to be held in the global south and the first in which foreign ministries are addressing the importance of the gender perspective.

Simultaneous panels will address the negotiating themes of the UN Summit of the Future, such as: sustainable development and financing; international peace and security; science, technology and digital cooperation; youth, global governance and intersectionality; and the eradication of discrimination. The participants will identify the challenges and opportunities of feminist foreign policies as a key element for accelerating fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, especially Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

Mexico is an international leader in gender equality. In 1975, when the issue of gender equality was included for the first time on the international agenda in multilateral forums, Mexico was a pioneer in hosting the first World Conference on Women. In 1977, it promoted the first Regional Conference on the Integration of Women in the Economic and Social Development of Latin America and, in 2020, Mexico became the first country in the global south to formally adopt a feminist foreign policy.

The Government of Mexico reiterates its firm commitment to substantive equality.