Beijing+30 High-Level Meeting: Global Leaders Recommit to Women’s Rights

President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of Namibia delivers her address at the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, 22 September 2025. Photo: UN Women / Ryan Brown

By Atinuke Adeosun 

On September 22, 2025, the halls of the United Nations Headquarters in New York carried the weight of history and the urgency of now. The world had gathered to mark thirty years since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, where global leaders first agreed to an ambitious blueprint for gender equality.

The Beijing+30 High-Level Meeting was convened by H.E. Annalena Baerbock, President of the United Nations General Assembly. It was a mirror, reflecting both progress made and promises broken. The theme, “Recommitting To, Resourcing And Accelerating The Implementation Of The Beijing Declaration And Platform For Action To Achieve Gender Equality,” captured this tension perfectly.

Representatives from across the globe, including 15 Heads of State, 77 Ministers, and over 150 speakers, assembled to ask a fundamental question: how much closer are we to the equality envisioned in 1995?

The numbers tell their own story. We are only five years away from 2030, the target year for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet, not a single country has achieved gender parity.

As a storyteller, I  believe that statistics only become meaningful when humanized. Behind every figure is a woman or girl navigating the realities that policies and promises often overlook. The meeting’s speakers gave those realities voice — and weight.

Voices of Commitment: The Opening Session

UNGA President H.E. Annalena Baerbock opened with both celebration and challenge. Yes, more girls are in school, and more women are breaking barriers in politics and business. Yet, as she reminded the assembly, “Thirty years later, the revolution remains unfinished.” Her words hung heavy. “There is no country in the world where women’s rights are purely equal to men, and there are still too many places where even speaking about women’s rights is a matter of life and death.”

Then came UN Secretary-General António Guterres, his tone resolute but weary. “A wave of misogyny is rolling across the world,” he warned, naming conflict, climate change, and reactionary politics as its fuel. “Women’s rights are not partisan issues but global imperatives,” he continued. “Artificial intelligence is reshaping our world, but this transformation is unfolding in an industry dominated by men… driven by algorithms that frequently reinforce discrimination.”

Representing China, Deputy State Council official Huang Xiaowei drew attention to another defining fault line: poverty. “Nearly 10% of women remain trapped in extreme poverty,” she observed, reminding delegates that equality without economic justice is an illusion.

UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous refused to let the conversation remain abstract. “Match your words today by courage tomorrow — in the policies you pass, the budgets you allocate, and the change you drive together with and for women.” Her warning was stark: 676 million women and girls now live in or near conflict zones — the highest recorded since the 1990s.

Professor Claudia Flores, Chair of the UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls, framed the moment within the long arc of history. “Progress over the last 30 years was, above all, driven by the bravery of women’s rights defenders, women who risked their lives to move the world forward. These are not abstract debates but concrete harms, with grave costs for women and girls… we cannot afford another 30 years of effort only to see progress unravel.”

Then came actress and UN Spotlight Initiative Advocate Cecilia Suárez, whose words cut through the diplomatic language: “How much longer will we accept being treated as second-class citizens?” She pointed to a moral imbalance in global priorities. “In 2025, women’s equality faces a $420 billion shortfall, while the world prefers to spend six times more on preparing for conflict than on empowering and safeguarding half of its population.”

And finally, human rights laureate Nadia Murad — a survivor, advocate, and symbol of resistance — brought the room to stillness. “Sustainable peace is impossible while half of humanity’s population is silenced or targeted with violence,” she said. Her demands were clear: fund women’s organizations, guarantee women’s place at the peace table, and hold oppressors accountable. For the next generation, she insisted on “the reality of equality, justice, and dignity” — not empty promises.

The Plenary: From Words to Commitments

The plenary session that followed shifted from rhetoric to responsibility. Over 100 delegations reaffirmed their support for the Beijing Declaration and shared national progress updates.

Some nations celebrated new gender-equality laws. Others spoke candidly about setbacks: from attacks on reproductive rights to the defunding of gender studies. In total, 109 Member States made 212 new pledges under the revitalized Beijing+30 Action Agenda.

These pledges spanned maternal health, STEM education for girls, violence-monitoring mechanisms, and feminist foreign aid frameworks. Mozambique’s Minister of Gender, Children, and Social Action, Nyeleki Brooke Mondlane, pledged “50-50 by 2030” in public appointments. European nations promised new funding for feminist development programs.

For UN officials, this was not just another summit. It was, as one delegate said, “the strongest multilateral stand for women and girls in three decades.”

Symbolically, the meeting was part of the UN General Assembly’s adoption of a resolution to revitalize the Commission on the Status of Women, strengthening accountability for gender equality. This reform was described as a “timely legacy of Beijing+30” — a reminder that progress must be institutional, not rhetorical.

Shades of Us: Storytelling as Liberation

For us at Shades of Us, Beijing+30 was a global meeting and a reaffirmation of why we do what we do.

The calls made in that hall echo through our own work, because storytelling is our form of advocacy. We believe that representation is not charity — it is power. Like the delegates in New York, we are committed to building systems that move beyond tokenism.

Our films confront the realities that policymakers often sidestep. We tell these stories honestly, without sanitizing them for donor comfort or foreign approval. Because healing begins with truth, and justice begins with being seen.

When UN Women’s Sima Bahous said, “Match your words today by courage tomorrow,” we felt that deeply. Every screening, every film, every conversation we host is part of that courage, a daily insistence that equality cannot wait another thirty years.

Looking Ahead

By the close of the Beijing+30 meeting, one message stood above the rest: commitment is not enough. As Bahous reminded the room, courage, not comfort, will shape the next phase of this revolution.

The 109 governments that made pledges have set the bar. Whether they will deliver remains to be seen. But as Nadia Murad urged, “Young women must inherit equality, not empty promises.”

H.E. Annalena Baerbock closed with a nod to both history and hope, honoring “the courageous women who fought for every single phrase of the Beijing Declaration,” before reminding the assembly: “The revolution remains unfinished.”

At Shades of Us, we left this moment not discouraged, but recharged. Because as long as there are women whose stories remain untold, the work continues in the classroom, on the screen, and in every community where storytelling can spark change.

See you in five years.