In solidarity with feminists, in all their diversity, who were missing in this conversation.

WMG Highlights from HLPF 2023!

HLPF 2023 has been an amazing two weeks with our members and allies in New York and online. The challenges of participation and process were still very much there, still heightened by the Covid pandemic, political conflict, visa processes and challenges in funding. We also faced challenges with regard to virtual modalities. However, we were still ready to demand system change. We have been present in all spaces possible and created an impact.

As we cross halfway through Agenda 2030, HLPF 2023 was a pivotal political moment. Since we gathered last year, feminists have been protesting online & in the halls of power demanding accountability for rising inequalities & calling for urgent action for human rights, gender equality, social justice, peace & full implementation of Agenda 2030, demanding that member states do not give up on achieving the SDGs. Sometimes the task ahead of us feels daunting. However, failure to achieve the SDGs – let alone make significant progress towards them – would be catastrophic for ourselves and our planet.

We thank all our members and allies deeply for their fierce feminist advocacy. There is still much work needed to ensure that we move towards a more accountable and effective Agenda 2030, for a peaceful, sustainable and equitable future for all, and to recover from the pandemic to a system centered on human rights and care. It uplifts us, however, to know that we’ll work together, in solidarity, to bring this transformative change, and to bring to reality this system that we, feminists, have envisioned collectively.

Here are a few highlights from all the hard work that was undertaken by the fierce feminists of WMG during HLPF 2023.

Photo Credit: Kiara Worth | IISD

Theme

HLPF 2023 discussed in depth Accelerating the recovery from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at all levels.

You can read WMG’s position on the SDGs in English and French in our HLPF 2023 Position Paper here.

Photo Credit: Kiara Worth | IISD

Statements & Interventions

6 interventions (including VNRs questions/statements) in official sessions, and over 5 interventions by WMG members on behalf of other constituencies
1 panelist in the official sessions
1 lead discussant

You can find the videos of all our interventions and VNR statements here as well as on our Youtube playlist. The VNR alternative reports submitted to us are already online here, on our website. They carry the critical feminist systemic analysis of our members and give important clues into what needs to be done, and done urgently!

Photo Credit: Lorena Terrazas

Side Events

We had 2 WMG side events this year:

Menstrual Health Rights: Looking at SDG 6 from the Lens of Gender Equality (co-hosted with Permanent Mission of Spain and WECF)
Effective partnership at all levels: The Public Investments We Need for the People and the Planet

We also co-hosted:

SDGs Learning, Training and Practice Session 10: Gender-Responsiveness in Partnerships for the SDGs: consultations, tools, strategies and approaches to overcome barriers towards gender equality (co-hosted with WMG, Mediators Beyond Borders International, Center for Gender, Migration and Justice, Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy)
An open dialogue with G7 & G20 stakeholders on “Women as key players in Development”.
Gender Inclusion In Education: Multi-country learning on progress and challenges towards access to safe, free and quality education for pregnant girls and parent learners (co-hosted with Malala Fund)
Malala Fund Gender Transformative Education Circles (co-hosted with Malala Fund)
Debt, Austerity and Women’s Human Rights: Addressing systemic barriers at the Midpoint of the 2030 Agenda (co-hosted with APWLD, APRCEM, FWRM, CWR, UNESCAP, UNCTAD, UN Women, Democratic Republic of Timor Leste)
HLPF 2023 Development Justice Teach-In: “What is the Feminist Development Justice Alternative to the Current Global Financial Architecture?” (in collaboration with APWLD, APRCEM, and Action Nexus)

Our members were active as organizers, moderators, and speakers of well over 10 other events, and we supported the organization of a photo-op action in solidarity with you, bringing the demands of the regions (emanating from our monthly meeting series in 2023), which was archived by IISD!

Our members also hosted an ongoing Facebook Series “Feminist Voices: A Global Conversation Series” focussing on regional perspectives brought in by fierce WMG feminists which is available on our Facebook and our YouTube HLPF 2023 Playlist.

Delegation Meetings

We had over 10 official meetings with member state delegations, UN institutions, and other stakeholders. We hope to stay in touch with all the delegations we’ve met, to share information and advocacy priorities with them throughout the year. We can be reached at contact@womensmajorgroup.org for meeting & collaboration possibilities.

Photo Credit: Lorena Terrazas

Colour campaign

It was heartwarming to see the level of solidarity, physically and virtually, for our colour campaign, and to see everyone looking so amazing in that day’s colour in our morning caucuses and the virtual meetings! It was also awesome to see allies wearing our colours, tying the scarves to their nameplates, mentioning the colour campaign in their speeches & amplifying the colour campaign online too!

You can find all our photos from the colour campaign inputs in the photos section of our Facebook & Instagram accounts. Our colours were very visible on social media!

Please find the visual graphics that we had prepared here! You can find photos for all days being uploaded by our members here. If you are yet to upload any photos you might have taken during the events or side events, please do so, for us to archive and amplify them!

We also prepared a social media toolkit in English containing messages also in Spanish and French! Many thanks to our members who’ve supported us with the translation of social media messages to Spanish & French, which are in the toolkit for you to use.

This year’s incredible messages, graphics and Zoom backgrounds will always remain available to you. So please bookmark the link to the social media toolkit, and use the materials whenever you can throughout the year, to show WMG’s advocacy on gender equality and sustainable development is year-round work!

Photo Credit: Lorena Terrazas

Digital Engagement

Twitter: Overall through the HLPF 2023, we’ve sent 90 tweets from the @Women_Rio20 account. We were able to bring in 42.8K tweet impressions, 12.7K increase in follower count, 3655 profile visits, 242 mentions.

The #FeministsWantSystemChange hashtag and our posts together had 9.7 million possible reach!

Instagram: We reached 1632 new accounts through our Instagram account, engaged with 903 new accounts and gained 70 followers. 43.5% of our engagement came from the age group 25-34. 23.7% came from the age group 35-44, 12.9% from the age group 18-24, and 10.1% from the age group 45-54. Over 91% of the engagement came from women.

(Unfortunately Instagram is yet to shift from binary classification of gender with regards to statistics, and currently does not show engagement from gender-diverse people.)

Photo Credit: Lorena Terrazas

Please see all our incredible digital outputs at our social media channels, and please do not forget to follow us :

Twitter: @Women_Rio20

Facebook: Women’s Major Group

Instagram: @womensmajorgroup

Youtube: Women’s Major Group

We thank you all for all your support, expertise, work, time and solidarity. We are already very much excited for our collective, fierce feminist advocacy in the upcoming days and months towards the SDG Mobilization Day on 16 September, SDG Summit on 18-19 September and the Global People’s Assembly.