Redrawing the lines of foreign policy through feminism  

IMPORTANT: To attend this event, you must be registered to attend the NGO CSW 69 Forum. Click here to register your attendance and visit this page for more information.

2025 marks the 30^th anniversary of what has been one of the most important blueprints for gender equality across the globe: the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. It can be considered to have been in the vanguard of feminist foreign policy (FFP) by coining the idea of gender mainstreaming as a way of accelerating the achievement of equality across all policy fields.

The underlying principles of FFP embrace the twelve key areas identified by the Beijing Declaration back in 1995 through its commitment to peace and security, human rights, gender-based violence, women in decision-making, institutional mechanisms, and the gendered impacts of climate change. Whilst women’s rights are still under severe attack, as recent international events woefully illustrate, the recent wave of commitments to FFP offers a promising avenue for resistance through the integration of feminist principles in the engagement with civil society and multilateral spaces.

In light of the CWS69 review theme, this parallel event looked into how far we have come in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and how we must confront new challenges through the lens of feminist foreign policy.   

We were honoured to have among the speakers:  

• Ann Linde, Co-Chair of the FFPPVC, FEPS Special Advisor on Foreign Affairs, Former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden  

• Daniela Sepúlveda, Executive and Project Director of the Center Nueva Política Exterior    

• Foteini Papagioti, Deputy Director Policy & Advocacy, International Center For Research on Women (ICRW)   

• Lina Gálvez Muñoz, Member of the European Parliament, Chair of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality   

• Machris Cabreros, Co-Chair of the FFPPVC and Global Coordinator at Progressive Alliance   

• Spogmay Ahmed, Senior Policy Advisor, Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative 

This event was organised by FEPS and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) EU Office Brussels, with the collaboration of PEFAL Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).

About the Feminist Foreign Policy Progressive Voices Collective (FFPPVC) 

FEPS, in collaboration with FES EU Office Brussels and supported by an active network of dedicated partners, launched the Feminist Foreign Policy Progressive Voices Collective (FFPPVC). This project aims to gather a community of feminist experts from across the globe and create a platform for them to exchange ideas, policy approaches, and practices in feminist foreign policy. This network is co-chaired by Ann Linde (former Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs) and Machris Cabreros (Global Coordinator at Progressive Alliance). We invite you to discover the work of the Collective namely, the FFPPVC policy briefs on FFP in the EU, Foresight, EU-LAC, Security and Defence, Feminist Funding and the policy recommendation summary.

For more information regarding the project and this event, please do not hesitate to contact Laeticia Thissen, Senior Policy Analyst on Gender Equality, FEPS (laeticia.thissen@feps-europe.eu) or Julia Wild, Project Officer, FEPS (julia.wild@feps-europe.eu).