Beijing +30: A moment to recommit to equality

Ensure women and girls can reap the economic benefits of the digital revolution, accessing new skills, opportunities and services, by bridging the digital gender gap & providing equal access to technology.

The digital revolution is transforming economies, societies and opportunities. It is unlocking access to information, education, healthcare and jobs on an unprecedented scale. Yet it is also leaving women behind. Globally, 70 per cent of men used the Internet in 2024, compared to 65 per cent of women. Widening gaps continue in the least developed countries, where less than 29 per cent of women are online compared to 41 per cent of men. In high-income countries, Internet use is nearly universal; 93 per cent of women and 94 per cent of men are online.

The rapid expansion of generative AI is reshaping labour markets, redefining job profiles, driving new demands for skills, and changing how and where people work. Employed women are nearly twice as likely as men to be in jobs at high risk of automation (4.7 and 2.4 percent or 65 vs 51 million jobs, respectively). The gap is even more pronounced in high-income countries (9.6 and 3.5 per cent), reflecting both gendered occupational structures and the concentration of roles exposed to generative AI, including clerical positions. Young female workers may be disproportionately impacted. Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean confirms that the worker most at risk is young, female and urban, with a medium to high level of education and relatively high income, and formally employed in banking, finance, insurance or the public sector.  

As elaborated in the Global Digital Compact and the World Summit on the Information Society+20 review, closing the gender digital divide is essential for women and girls to thrive. AI technology, governance, policy and regulatory frameworks must adequately integrate a gender perspective. Alongside, investments in increased access and digital literacy for women and girls, skills training tailored to women’s needs, efforts to boost the digital skills of female employees and support job transitions are needed. For example, Rwanda’s digital inclusion initiatives have significantly improved women’s access to digital tools and training. Enhanced participation of women in science, technology and mathematics fields and digital decision-making roles is crucial. More action is needed to reach women in the informal economy and improve rural women’s digital literacy.

Address women’s poverty by investing national budgets in social protection and high-quality public services, including in women’s health, girls’ education, and care.

Persistent poverty among women and girls directly stems from pervasive exclusion and discrimination in labour markets; a lack of choice and autonomy in how they spend their time; insufficient economic resources, including credit and land; and inadequate access to quality public services and social protection. In 2025, an estimated 9.2 per cent of women and girls live in extreme poverty compared to 8.6 per cent of men and boys.  Relatedly, In 2024, 46.4 per cent of working-age women were employed, compared to 69.5 per cent of men. Over the last 30 years, the gender employment gap has narrowed by only 4 percentage points, with high-income and lower-middle-income countries exhibiting the largest reduction. If this slow pace of progress persists, it will take nearly 2 centuries to achieve gender parity in employment globally.  

Missed or delayed entry into the labour market has lasting consequences for women and girls, perpetuating gender inequalities across their lifetimes. An indicator of disparities getting an early start is the employment gap between young men and young women aged 15–24; it stood at 12.7 percentage points in 2024. Throughout their lives, women in low- and lower-middle-income countries disproportionately end up in informal work, at rates 4.9 and 2.3 percentage points higher than men in these countries, respectively. These women often lack social protection, decent work conditions and collective representation, trapping them in poverty. Worldwide, a staggering 2 billion women and girls lack any form of social protection, in part linked to their employment status. Older women are particularly vulnerable – 77.2 per cent of older women vs. 82.6 per cent of older men receive a contributory and/or tax financed pension. 

For women and girls to leave poverty in large numbers, structural barriers must be dismantled. These include discriminatory social norms that largely relegate unpaid care and domestic work responsibilities to women and girls. Excessive and unequal care responsibilities keep 708 million women outside the labour force globally. They contributed to employed women spending approximately 6 hours and 25 minutes less per week in paid work than men in 2024. Investments in integrated and inclusive social protection systems and high-quality public services, including in women’s health, education and national care policies and services are part of the solution.

Adopt, implement and fund legislation to end violence against women and girls, and develop comprehensive National Action Plans, including support and coordination with community-led organizations to extend the reach of services.

Violence against women and girls is one of the most pervasive — and preventable — human rights violations in the world. Globally, over one in eight women aged 15–49 has been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by a current or former intimate partner in the previous 12 months (12.5 per cent). In Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Papua New Guinea, prevalence rates exceed 30 per cent.

The past three decades have seen substantial progress on legislation to address this issue, with most measures enacted since the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against women and girls in 1993 and the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995. By 2024, 84 per cent of countries with available data had specific legislation on violence against women and girls and/or domestic violence/intimate partner violence. Some 66 per cent reported establishing a national action plan specific to violence against women and girls; 78 per cent provided budgetary commitments for services addressing it.

Policies, laws and budgets are essential to end violence against women and girls. Success is closely tied to rigorous implementation as well as alignment with international standards and recommendations. It requires appropriate capacity-building and the sensitization of public officials, especially law enforcement personnel, the judiciary, healthcare providers, social workers and teachers. Well-resourced, evidence-based national action plans should steer continued efforts and robust accountability measures, including through investments in civil society, women’s rights organizations and community-based action.

More interventions need to help women and girls obtain economic autonomy in parallel to advocacy for broader social change. Globally, increased financial inclusion prompts declines in intimate partner violence. Yet violence against women and girls remains a critical barrier to women’s economic participation; women who experience intimate partner violence earn, on average, between 26 and 60 per cent less than those who do not. With strong laws and enforcement protections, improved multi-sectoral survivor support services and expanded partnerships with civil society organizations and improved coordination among governments, civil society and other stakeholders, transformational change by 2030 is possible.

Accelerate the achievement of women’s full and equal decision-making power in private and public domains, and at all levels of government, including by applying special measures.

Decision-making remains in men’s hands, in all walks of life, everywhere in the world. As of 1 January 2025, women held only 27.2 per cent of seats in national parliaments. Their representation in local governments stagnated at 35.5 per cent in 2023 and 2024, after an average annual increase of 0.5 percentage points since 2020. A bright spot is the more balanced female representation among younger members of parliament (57 under age 30 and 63 under age 40). As parliaments become younger, they may strike a better gender balance, but only if younger members keep advancing into leadership.

Inclusive representation in the public service and judiciary is fundamental for fair, just and effective governance. Institutions that truly reflect diverse populations enhance public trust and advance equitable decision-making. Yet the latest data highlight the grim reality that women globally remain underrepresented in both the public service and judiciary. Current representation ratios compared to population fall short of parity at just 0.80 and 0.90, respectively. The gap is especially pronounced in Central and Southern Asia, at 0.52 and 0.46, respectively. Data disaggregated by public service position and court level show that women are disproportionately concentrated in clerical and administrative positions and low-level courts. They remain notably underrepresented in senior government positions (0.74) and constitutional and supreme courts (0.75).

Even in managerial positions, women’s representation is quite low at 30 per cent, with a rate of change suggesting that gender parity will take nearly a century. This trend indicates that a persistent glass ceiling blocks career advancement for women.

Proactive measures boosting leadership and decision-making opportunities for women are necessary. Well-designed and implemented quotas have repeatedly proven effective, sometimes nearly doubling women’s representation in parliament over an election cycle. Other measures include amending internal parliamentary and party rules to set quotas for women and youth in leadership positions, rotating positions between men and women, introducing dual leadership structures, and promoting the proportional and equitable distribution of parliamentarians across all committees.

Structural transformation and inclusion of all women in decision-making systems, with a focus on the voices of adolescent girls and young women is also crucial. With such measures, protection of civic spaces and strengthened institutions overseeing the implementation of gender equality, the current dismal picture of gender equality in decision making can be reversed.

Drive accountability for the women, peace and security agenda and gender-responsive humanitarian action by adopting fully financed national action plans and funding the local women’s organizations leading responses to crises and conflicts.

Innocent civilians, including women and children, contribute least but bear the most impact of active conflicts and wars. World military expenditure reached a new high of $2.7 trillion in 2024, an increase of 9.4 per cent in real terms from 2023. As wars and conflicts decimate lives, women and girls bear the brunt with more than 28,000 female deaths since the start of the war in Gaza. Women and girls are overrepresented among internally displaced people at 53 per cent of the total. Women also comprise a higher proportion of stateless people, at 30 per cent compared to 26 per cent for men. 

Despite these impacts, women’s participation in peace processes leads to better and more sustainable outcomes. In the border zones of Mali and Niger, after women’s participation in local conflict prevention rose from 5 to 25 per cent between 2020 and 2022, over 100 conflicts around natural resources were resolved. In conflict-affected countries, however, women’s parliamentary representation is 7 percentage points lower than the global average of 27 per cent. Further, women’s shares as negotiators, mediators and signatories in major peace processes remain far below the minimum one-third target set by the United Nations. Funding for women, peace and security and humanitarian action has failed to match the daunting scale of current challenges.

The convergence of the thirtieth anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action and the twenty-fifth anniversary of United Nations Security Council resolution 1325 offers a significant opportunity to take stock and strengthen implementation. National action plans are important tools that help countries implement global commitments to women, peace and security within domestic politics. Recent years have seen a remarkable growth in countries adopting such plans. As of June 2025, 113 countries and territories had such plans, up from 32 in 2011. The plans must not serve as policy frameworks alone. More focus is needed to fund, implement and report on them. Currently, only 28 per cent have increased funds to implement them. Overall, the Women, Peace and Security agenda needs to be adequately financed, and women’s economic security and access to resources in conflict settings must be prioritized. Gender data and analysis in conflict and crisis settings must also be widely available to inform decisions, policies and programmes, and for consultations with women’s civil society organizations.

Prioritize women and girls’ rights, including from rural and indigenous communities, in the transition to environmental and biodiversity sustainability, by centering them in climate action, ensuring they can develop new skills to gain green jobs and guaranteeing their access to productive assets and land rights.

Climate change exacerbates crises, amplifies existing inequalities and poses the greatest risks to those who are already the most marginalized. By 2050, under a worst-case climate scenario, up to 158.3 million more women and girls may live in extreme poverty ($2.15 per day) globally as a result of climate change. Nearly half could reside in sub-Saharan Africa. Beyond extreme poverty, a much larger number of women and girls can be impacted if higher international poverty thresholds are considered: The total number of additional women and girls expected to be impacted as a result of climate change reaches 309.7 million at $3.65 per day and 422.0 million at $6.85 per day, up to 16.1 million more than the total number of men and boys. Food insecurity may also rise significantly, affecting up to 236 million more women and girls.  Despite these major concerns, women’s issues and voices are often missing from the climate agenda. Only 39 per cent of countries (24 out of 62) have established national coordination mechanisms – such as task forces or working groups – to integrate gender equality into climate policymaking across sectors.

Achieving a just and sustainable future requires shifting away from profit-driven, extractive systems that perpetuate crises and threats, and towards economies rooted in care, equity and ecological balance. Feminist climate justice offers a powerful path marked by human rights, fair resource distribution, inclusive decision-making, and accountability for past and future harms. It responds to the serious threats that climate changes poses in terms of diminished livelihoods and greater poverty, hunger, conflict and gender inequality.

Governments must adopt normative and legislative reforms aimed at climate justice, including by accelerating women’s participation at all levels of decision-making and securing equal rights to land, resources and tenure security. Promoting and amplifying the voices of grass-roots and Indigenous communities, including women environmental human rights defenders, is crucial. Bringing adolescent girls and youth to the heart of all these efforts, such as through climate education and youth-led climate action, can engage the next generation and cultivate their leadership. In preparation for the 2025 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), Ecuador, Lesotho and the Marshall Islands, for example, have committed to engaging youth, women and marginalized groups in climate decision-making and NDC implementation.