Speech: Gender equality remains a unifying force for the world – 2025 must be our turning point
Remarks by UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous at the high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly on the 30th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, at the UN Headquarters, on 22 September 2025.
[As delivered.]
Thirty years ago, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action changed the world. It brought the UN Charter’s principles and promises to life for women and girls: human rights, dignity, equality. To this day, the Beijing Declaration remains the most visionary, groundbreaking and far-reaching global agenda for gender equality and women’s rights.
And it has delivered.
Today, girls are far more likely to finish school than any other moment in history, maternal deaths have nearly halved, and the number of women in parliaments has more than doubled. Nearly every country has laws to end violence against women and girls. And, in just the last five years alone, nearly 100 discriminatory laws have been reversed.
Every step forward was hard-won by feminist movements, by governments, by the multilateral system. And every step forward proved the same truth: gender equality works.
But progress has not been fast enough, wide enough, or deep enough. And in too many places, it is being reversed.
On our current path, 351 million women and girls will still live in extreme poverty by 2030. And today, 676 million women and girls live within reach of deadly conflict, the highest recorded since the 1990s. Women and girls in crisis suffer unspeakable atrocities, hunger, and violence. From Afghanistan, the DRC, Gaza, the Sudan, Ukraine to Yemen, and beyond, women and girls bear the brunt of crisis. We owe it to them to spare no effort in the pursuit for peace.
The very systems built to advance and fund gender equality are being hollowed out—quietly, but deliberately. This is not just regression. It is retreat. But, the future is not fixed. Another path is still possible.
As we commemorate 80 years of the United Nations and 30 years since the Beijing Declaration, 2025 must be our turning point.
That is why, in this pivotal year, we asked governments to recommit with bold, measurable actions across a roadmap of six priority areas. And you answered. One hundred and eight governments have stepped forward with 196 national actions on the Beijing+30 Action Agenda.
You are investing in care systems, strengthening gender data, and funding women peacebuilders on the frontlines. You are putting power, protection, and possibility in the hands of women and girls. You are harnessing technology and innovation to advance, not hinder, equality. And you are enacting laws to protect women and girls from violence.
Your actions reflect partnership with feminist movements who have carried this agenda through times of backlash and breakthrough alike.
Importantly, your actions prioritize the leadership and voice of adolescent girls and women.
These actions form a map of the possible. And we know what that possible can deliver when we come together.
Just this past week, you took another step forward together—when you adopted by consensus the resolution to revitalize the Commission on the Status of Women—a timely legacy of Beijing+30. I applaud you for this. This is multilateralism at its best.
Excellencies, your words today must be matched by courage tomorrow: in the policies you pass, in the budgets you allocate, and in the change you drive together, with and for women.
Because gender equality remains a unifying force for the world.
Let history remember 2025 as the year we stood our ground—for ceasefires, for peace, for justice, for equal rights, for sustainable development, and for prosperity for all women, for all girls—for all humanity.
I thank you.
