World leaders place women’s empowerment and gender equality at the heart of multilateralism as UNGA80 High-level Week opens

In this historic context, leaders from around the world gathered at the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women at thebeginning of UNGA80 High-Level Week to celebrate the Beijing Declaration as the most visionary and groundbreaking global agenda for gender equality, and to launch a call to affirm that women and girls' rights must remain a unifying force.

World leaders moved beyond words to commitments with 109 national governments mobilizing 212 national actions in support of the Beijing+30 Action Agenda, the strongest multilateral stand for women and girls in the past 30 years.

UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous urged governments to stand their ground and to uplift gender equality as a unifying force for the world.

"Your words today must be matched by courage tomorrow: in the policies you pass, the budgets you allocate, and the change you drive together with and for women. These actions form a map of the possible, and we know what that possible can deliver when we come together. Because gender equality remains a unifying force for the world," said Bahous. 

The event was attended by 155 speakers, of whom there were 15 Heads of State and 10 Heads of Government, 8 of them women - Suriname, Switzerland, Namibia, Peru, Slovenia, Marshall Islands, North Macedonia and Barbados - and 77 Ministers. Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Queen of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; and Her Majesty Queen Mathilde of the Belgians, also addressed the event.

"Equal rights and opportunities for women and girls are not partisan issues. They are global imperatives - and the foundation of peace, prosperity and progress. The United Nations stands with them, and all leaders should do the same, by speaking out and doing everything possible to realize the vision of the Beijing Declaration," said the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterrez at the event. 

This also marks the first major initiative of the new President of the General Assembly, H.E. Annalena Baerbock, the 5th woman President of the General Assembly out of 80. "We stand on the shoulders of giants, of women who paved the way forward for us. Today we celebrate the courageous women who fought for every single phrase in the Beijing Declaration. The fight paid off, but 30 years later the revolution remains unfinished," she said.  

The event comes on the heels of another positive step for multilateralism - the adoption by consensus of the resolution to revitalize the Commission on the Status of Women, a timely legacy of Beijing+30. 

Interventions from all global leaders can be watched here and here.