When girls’ and women’s rights are under attack, silence is not an option. Around the world today, hard-won freedoms are being rolled back. In some places, girls are being pushed out of classrooms. In others, women are being denied the right to safe abortion. The global backlash is real – and it demands a united response.
That is why, on 22 and 23 October 2025, France hosted the Fourth Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy – a gathering that brought together foreign ministers, international organisations, public development banks, civil society leaders, researchers and philanthropies from every region of the world.
At its core lies a simple question: how can we, together, defend gender equality and the rights of women and girls – everywhere – when they are being challenged, even reversed?
Since 2019, France has been pursuing a feminist foreign policy. This is not about adding a “gender lens” to diplomacy as an afterthought – it is about reshaping the way foreign policy itself is conceived and practised.
It means that when we talk about development, we ask: are women leading and benefiting?
When we talk about peace and security, we ask: are women at the table?
When we talk about technology or climate, we ask: are women co-creating solutions? How can equality be built into the solutions we design?
A feminist foreign policy is a framework for acting differently, and more justly.
In South Africa, the struggle for women’s equality has always been intertwined with the struggle for freedom itself. Names like Albertina Sisulu, Ruth First, Charlotte Maxeke – and so many others – remind us that the fight for political liberation and gender equality are inseparable. France’s feminist foreign policy draws inspiration from that same conviction. Democracy and peace cannot thrive without women’s voices, rights and leadership.
That belief is backed by evidence. When women participate in negotiations, agreements are 35% more likely to last. When gender equality is substantively embedded in climate policies, societies become more resilient. When girls have access to education and health services – including sexual and reproductive health services – communities move forward.
Through the Support Fund for Feminist Organisations, launched in 2020, France has helped strengthen more than 1,400 feminist movements in 75 countries – from grassroots groups defending reproductive rights, to young activists fighting online harassment.
More recently, the Laboratory for Women’s Rights Online, launched in 2024, became the first global incubator to address technology-facilitated gender-based violence – an issue increasingly affecting young women worldwide.
In March 2025, France adopted a new International Strategy for a Feminist Foreign Policy, placing gender equality at the heart of its response to major global challenges – from conflict and climate, to digital transformation and artificial intelligence.
There is still much work to be done. If current trends continue, it could take 300 years to achieve global gender equality. In the past year alone, conflict-related sexual violence rose by 50%. Across too many countries, millions of women still do not have basic reproductive rights. And when war, economic collapse or authoritarianism strike, it is girls’ and women’s rights that fall first.
Against this backdrop, the ministerial conference was not simply another diplomatic meeting. It was a call to regroup, to reaffirm our collective ambition that there can be no compromise and no regression when it comes to girls’ and women’s rights.
Feminist foreign policy is about solidarity. It’s about building alliances that connect Paris to Pretoria, Dakar to Delhi, Bogotá to Bamako. Because the same forces that threaten women’s rights in one part of the world echo in another.
Together, we step forward. DM