Co-created by Women Deliver and 650 participants across the world, the Melbourne Declaration for Gender Equality launched on April 27 at the Women Deliver 2026 Conference (WD2026), outlining a bold, shared vision for gender equality and the action needed to achieve it.
The Declaration is a timely response to the dire threat that human rights face under the global rise of authoritarianism and governments’ abandonment to essential human services. “The institutions that have long supported our sector are in crisis, and hard-won progress achieved by feminist movements over the last decades is at risk,” Women Deliver wrote.
Women Deliver also emphasized the need to evolve from the shortcomings of the international development sector that they wrote “replicates colonial power dynamics” and concentrates “decision-making in the hands of the few.”
The Declaration is not just a commitment to women’s rights but also a strategy to change how to approach and rebuild the global feminism ecosystem. It challenges the current structure and calls for a shift to care, accountability, and justice.
“This moment offers an opportunity to completely overhaul these systems, creating people-centered, decolonized alternatives grounded in the unalienable human rights of all people,” the Declaration states.
The Declaration commits to the following:
- Ensuring local and national feminist movements have the capacity to hold states accountable for their responsibilities to human rights
- Challenging power structures and centering local priorities of all people at the institutional level
- Aligning resources and infrastructure with feminist values across the wider gender equality ecosystem
The Declaration is named after the site of WD2026’s host city of Melbourne, where conference participants are encouraged to carry the work forward.
This collective journey is only beginning, Women Deliver writes, and they encourage others to read the Declaration’s guide and full text. They invite Individuals and organizations to endorse the declaration to advance theit shared vision for the future.
