World leaders pledge 212 actions for women and girls at UNGA80

Women’s empowerment and gender equality was at the centre of multilateralism, opening the UN General Assembly’s 80th high-level week with more than 212 national commitments in support of women and girls.

The pledges were made as governments marked a series of milestones: 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 15 years since the creation of UN Women and 80 years since the UN’s founding. But the anniversaries come amid what the UN called “unprecedented backlash” in a statement, with hard-won rights under threat worldwide.

At the High-level Meeting on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, 109 governments mobilised commitments under the Beijing+30 Action Agenda, described by UN officials as the strongest multilateral stand for women in three decades.

Sima Bahous, executive director of UN Women, called on governments to match rhetoric with resources. “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,” she said.

The event drew 155 speakers, including 15 heads of state, 10 heads of government, eight of them women, and 77 ministers. Queen Rania of Jordan and Queen Mathilde of Belgium also addressed the meeting.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres underlined that women’s rights are “not partisan issues” but global imperatives. “The United Nations stands with them and all leaders should do the same,” he said.

The gathering marked the first major initiative led by Annalena Baerbock, newly elected as the fifth female President of the General Assembly. “Thirty years later, the revolution remains unfinished,” she told delegates.

The meeting followed the adoption of a resolution to revitalise the Commission on the Status of Women, which UN officials hailed as a timely legacy of Beijing+30.