Question Period Note: Canada’s Role in the Generation Equality Forum

Update on Canada’s Role in the Generation Equality Forum

• Advancing gender equality both in Canada and around the world is a key Government of Canada priority, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Canada is supportive of UN Women, France, and Mexico’s efforts to launch the Generation Equality Forum to mark the 25th Anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+25).

• The Forum will seek to make meaningful progress to advance gender equality over five years through Action Coalitions in six key areas. On July 1, 2020, Canada was proud to be named as a co-lead for the Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership.

• Canada looks forward to working within a partnership that includes countries, civil society, and the private sector, to develop transformative actions and commitments to make real progress in this area. Public consultations are expected to take place in the fall to inform the actions to be implemented and national commitments.

• The Generation Equality Forum will formally launch in 2021 during high-level meetings in Mexico City and Paris.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing +25), UN Women, France and Mexico (also known as the “Core Group”), are planning to launch the Generation Equality Forum (GEF). This aims to reaffirm multilateralism in uncertain times for women’s rights, strengthen the women’s movement, and support youth and multi-stakeholder engagement for gender equality.

The GEF agenda will focus on action and accountability in six areas to address key challenges and emerging issues for gender equality. The six areas that the Action Coalitions will make progress on include: feminist movements and leadership; gender-based violence; economic justice and rights; feminist model of climate justice; bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights; and technology and innovation.

These Action Coalitions are intended to be innovative partnerships among civil society, Member States, international organizations and the private sector. Each Action Coalition will be expected to develop and implement a set of concrete and transformative actions over a five year period.

In February 2020, Canada expressed interest in co-leading the Action Coalition on “Feminist Movements and Leadership”. In April 2020, UN Women invited Canada to join the leadership of this Action Coalition. In addition to Canada, members of this Action Coalition include the Netherlands and a number of non-government partners (e.g. Inter-Parliamentary Union, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Open Society Foundation, International Women’s Development Agency, Gender Links).

Canada will be represented by the Minister for Women and Gender Equality on domestic commitments and the Minister for International Development on international commitments on this Action Coalition.

While plans to launch the GEF have been postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, work on the Action Coalitions is continuing. UN Women formally announced co-leads of all Action Coalition members on July 1, 2020. Action Coalition leads met for the first time in July 2020 to begin discussing governance, working methods, and a shared vision for what the Action Coalition will achieve. Throughout the summer and fall of 2020, co-leads will be meeting to develop a list of actions and commitments that each coalition will undertake over the next five years.

Public consultations on these actions and commitments are expected to begin in late fall. WAGE is also working with GAC counterparts to identify opportunities to consult domestically with civil society in the lead-up to the formal launch of the GEF and the Action Coalitions in 2021 at high-level meetings in Mexico City and Paris.

WAGE will be providing funding to Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health (CanWaCH) and the (Redacted) to help ensure that Canadian civil society can contribute meaningfully to the GEF initiative. WAGE will also be funding those civil society representatives who were selected to join Canada’s official delegaiton to UNCSW 64 to hold virtual consultation sessions to promote and continue progress towards gender equality in the context of Beijing+25.

In addition to supporting Canada’s domestic commitments under the Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership, this funding will support pan-Canadian partnerships and networks among civil society, and facilitate their ability to hold virtual meetings in order to develop collective recommendations for Canada leading into the GEF and its priorities to advance gender equality beyond 2020.

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