Adoption of the joint political declaration, 4th Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policies, 23 October 2025

Paris Joint Political Declaration on Achieving Gender Equality, Promoting Human Rights of All Women and Girls and Strengthening a Feminist Approach to Foreign Policy under the auspices of the 4th Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policies in Paris, October 22 and 23 2025

Preamble

We, the undersigned Ministers and high representatives of governments, including Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Kosovo, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Moldova, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Portugal, Rwanda, Slovenia, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay,

committed to taking feminist or gender-transformative approaches to our foreign policies through the adoption of Feminist Foreign Policies or, in other cases, by strengthening gender equality and women's and girls' rights,

have gathered at a critical moment at the 4th Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policies in Paris, France on 22 and 23 October 2025 to reaffirm our enduring commitment and to review progress made and challenges that remain to upholding gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in all their diversity.

We stand in unity and solidarity as the world faces a growing number of protracted and multidimensional crises, and at a time when international law as well as agreed norms and standards on human rights, including women's and girls' rights, are being challenged.

While we acknowledge the hard-won gains made in the past fifty years, we express our deep concern at current levels of violence and discrimination against women and girls in all their diversity, which have gone unabated, ongoing attempts to roll back women's and girls' rights, and the persisting adverse impacts of gender inequality around the world.

Guiding principles

We reiterate our shared adherence to the rule of law and democratic principles, universality of human rights, respect for international law and multilateralism, which are interlinked and mutually reinforcing, and our firm belief that feminist-based approaches provide conditions for sustainable, resilient and inclusive societies and peace.

We reaffirm our resolute support for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and all the Sustainable Development Goals, which place gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at their core, notably through SDG 5, and for the implementation of the Pact for the Future and its annexes.

We emphasize that our work is grounded in our commitment to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the human rights of all women and girls as necessary conditions for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the fulfilment of international commitments, such as the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the Optional Protocols thereto, as well as other relevant instruments for realizing gender equality.

We maintain our commitments made in 1995, when adopting the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences. While those commitments made 30 years ago enabled considerable progress, significant challenges remain and we recognize that we are still far from achieving SDG 5 and its indicators globally and nationally, only five years away from 2030.

We reaffirm the commitment made by 179 countries at the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 to adopt a forward-looking Programme of Action, promising a profound impact on the lives of women and girls. In Cairo, we established a worldwide consensus on the vital link between population and sustainable development, and recognized the centrality of prioritizing sexual and reproductive health and rights, including bodily autonomy. Today, this is more relevant than ever.

As this year marks the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and its subsequent resolutions, we reaffirm our commitment to integrate and implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda across our national and foreign policies; recall our firm belief that gender equality and the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in all their diversity in all stages of peace processes, conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peacebuilding is essential to the maintenance and promotion of international peace and security; reiterate our strong condemnation of all forms of gender-based violence, including conflict-related sexual violence, and urge all States to fight against the impunity of the perpetrators of such crimes.

We recall our commitment to achieving ambitious outcomes on gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Paris United Nations Agreement on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and our strong support of the principles of the Pact for Prosperity, People and the Planet (4P).

We commend and build on the efforts of previous Ministerial Conferences on Feminist Foreign Policies held in Germany (2022), the Netherlands (2023) and Mexico (2024).

Call to action

Against this background, we do solemnly declare in mutual friendship and respect, our commitment to work together to:

1. Respect, protect, promote, and fulfil the human rights of all women and girls, and to recognize the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of these rights, in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and relevant human rights treaties. We call upon all States to comply with their international obligations in this regard. We will continue to ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights of women and girls in all their diversity and throughout their life course, including the right to equality, life, health, food, nutrition, privacy, education, freedom of conscience, of opinion and expression and freedom from cruel treatment;

2. Combat gender-based violence as a national and international priority, recognizing that women and girls suffer from multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination. We stress the urgent need to address and eliminate all forms of gender-based violence and discrimination, including forms of criminalization or punishment of women and girls for making decisions regarding their own body, discrimination based on sexual orientation, and gender identity, as well as technology-facilitated gender-based violence, through an online and offline continuum;

3. Engage men and boys as agents of change and beneficiaries of gender equality. In this regard, we will strive to engage, educate, encourage and support men and boys to take responsibility for their behaviour, including their sexual and reproductive behaviour. Focussing on men and boys and on their respective masculinities is crucial to address the root causes of unequal power relations and structures, including gender inequalities such as the inequitable distribution of care work that negatively impacts the effective enjoyment of the rights of women, adolescents and girls

4. Support the key role of civil society actors and feminist organizations, including women human rights defenders in the defense, protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms and promote a supportive environment for those actors throughout the world: we strongly oppose legal and administrative measures that reduce civic space, especially for women's and feminist organizations. We recognize the role of local authorities in strengthening actions at the local level to address gender disparities;

5. Defend the right of women and girls in all their diversity to make informed decisions about their lives and their bodies, and further protect and advance sexual and reproductive health and rights as essential to achieving gender equality, ensure comprehensive and timely access to comprehensive maternal health services including comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services for pregnancies and childbirths as well as safe abortion care, and prevent unintended pregnancy, including in adolescents;

6. Recognize the existence of diverse forms of families, that must be protected by States and respected by societies as a leverage for gender equality, and recognize that all children, for the full and harmonious development of their personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding and that parents, legal caregivers, family members and other members of the household have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child;

7. Redouble actions to guarantee women's and youth's equal, full, effective and meaningful participation in all decision-making systems and in all spheres and levels of public, economic and political life, including through the strengthening of universal social protection systems, undertaking reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, and ensuring decent working conditions, equal pay for equal work and work of equal value. Also, we emphasize the relevance of CEDAW General recommendation n°40, including in reference to the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

8. Design and promote, in our administrations and for our civil servants, a feminist culture that recognizes the rights of women, young women, and girls in all their diversity and is integrated into decision-making and diplomacy.
We remain resolute to further coordinate our work and positions within the United Nations System, other relevant international fora and multilateral initiatives, regional organizations, as well as in our bilateral relationships. At this 4th Ministerial Conference for Feminist Foreign Policies, we are taking further steps to strengthen our engagement across multilateral systems to realize our targets to achieve gender equality and empowerment all women and girls (SDG 5) and achieve respect of these universal values, recognizing that individually we are strong, but together we are stronger.