Making 2025 the year of moving forward for all women and girls

2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the most comprehensive and widely endorsed global agenda for gender equality and the realization of women's and girls' human rights, which identified violence against women as a critical area of concern. The 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) focused on reviewing the progress and challenges impacting the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment.  

On 11 March, the second day of CSW69, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund), together with the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), MamaCash, Equality Fund and the Alliance for Feminist Movements, hosted a Strategic Dialogue "Beyond Beijing+30: Sustainable Financing for Gender Equality” with women’s rights and civil society organizations in the global context of backlash.  

Lopa Banerjee, Director of Civil Society Division at UN Women, opened the event and set the tone for a critical conversation, saying “30 years after Beijing with all the weight of evidence before us, women’s rights and civil society organizations are being starved of the resources they need.” 

In recent years, a surge in opposition to women’s rights and a growing backlash against feminist movements and activists worldwide is putting women’s human rights defenders at risk. Anti-gender and women’s rights movements and actors – now more well-resourced, coordinated and politically mainstreamed – have intensified pushback against progressive feminist agendas, leading to attacks on civil society spaces and direct threats and violence against women’s human rights defenders.  

Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, highlighted the courage of women survivors who continue to drive change in their communities despite increasing backlash. Hala Al-Karib, Regional Director of the Strategic Initiative in the Horn of Africa, underscored the critical role of women’s rights organizations as “the only force” consistently working to protect and support women and girls, especially in complex and crisis-affected settings. Pamela Martín García, Co-Founder of Vecinas Feministas, explained how the ACT Programme is fostering feminist movements by creating spaces to advocate for justice for survivors of violence and calling for greater accountability. 

A clear and urgent call emerged: long-term, flexible, and core funding is more critical than ever for women’s rights organizations to sustain their life-saving work and protect progress toward gender equality. As Happy Mwende Kinyili, Co-Executive Director of Mama Cash, powerfully stated, “The stakes are high. We need to unlock new resources.” 

Closing the event, Ritika Dhall, Head of Section for Gender Equality at the Department for Human Development, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, delivered a strong message of solidarity: "Know that when we stand alongside you as member states, we fight alongside you. We hear you. We are part of this ecosystem. And we are doing everything we can to drive change." 

The event also introduced the UN Trust Fund’s newly launched report, “Beyond Backlash: Advancing Movements to End Violence against Women,” co-produced with over 100 women’s rights and civil society partners, highlights an alarming reality: today’s backlash against women’s rights is more systematic, legally embedded, technologically sophisticated, and globally connected than ever before.  

It is clear that the need for sustaining feminist and women’s movements is urgent, and collective actions through demand-driven investment, multi-stakeholder partnership and joint advocacy are part of the solution to support women’s rights and civil society organizations driving progress to protect and empower women and girls.