“Defending equality through a feminist foreign policy also means defending democracy,” asserts Albares

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, opened the “Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy: Building peace and democracy” on Tuesday, a high-level international event the fifth edition of which is being  hosted by Spain. The conference brings together ministers and representatives from ministries across some 60 countries worldwide, as well as 150 civil society organisations, feminist movements and senior UN officials.

“We need a feminist foreign policy to change the world, to make it a more peaceful, more democratic and fairer place,” the Minister stated at the opening of the event, because “defending equality through a feminist foreign policy is also defending democracy”. The fifth edition of this international conference is dedicated to peace and democracy because “gender equality and justice are deeply linked to peace and democracy; when peace and democracy retreat, discrimination, inequality and injustice against women advance”, explained Albares. 

The Minister defended the need for a feminist foreign policy “because violence has returned as a tool of foreign policy and its first victims are always women”, referring to the growing challenge to women’s rights or the deprivation of rights suffered by women and girls in different parts of the world, where their rights to health, education, participation in public life and security are not being guaranteed.

​Albares’ opening address was followed by remarks from Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women; Tom Fletcher, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator; Diene Keita, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); and Pramila Patten, Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. 

Also speaking at the opening were Lina Abou-Habib, Director of the Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship, representing the Civil Society Committee established to advise this conference, and the French Minister Delegate for Francophonie, International Partnerships and French Nationals Abroad, Eléonore Caroit, representing the country that hosted the previous edition of this international conference.

​Following the opening segment, two plenary sessions were held. The first, which gave the conference its title, “Peace and democracy in the face of 21st-century challenges: Feminist Foreign Policy”, focused on highlighting gender equality as a driving force for strengthening democracy and peace, whilst the second, “Financing Gender Equality: Priorities for Feminist Cooperation and Inclusive, Sustainable Development”, was dedicated to one of Spain’s major contributions to the development of feminist foreign policy.

Following on from the discussions at the 2025 Seville International Conference on Financing for Development, today’s plenary session addressed the reform of financing systems from a feminist perspective, analysing their role in promoting gender equality, the structural challenges involved, and the need to promote investments that effectively reach women and girls. 

​On the sidelines of the conference, Minister Albares took the opportunity to hold a working meeting with Diene Keita, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), with whom the Minister signed a Strategic Partnership Framework for the period 2026-2029, reinforcing Spain’s role as a strategic partner of the Fund.

The framework emphasises the need to preserve and strengthen UNFPA’s normative, operational and humanitarian mandate, and to this end, it strengthens the coherence, predictability and impact of Spanish cooperation with the Fund, with the aim of advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, guaranteeing access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, and promoting evidence-based population and development policies, human rights and the principle of leaving no one behind.

The first day of the Ministerial Conference on Feminist ​Foreign Policy also featured the high-level dialogue “‘Achieving substantive equality and parity: Feminist leadership and political action for gender equality in Foreign Policy and Multilateralism”, which focused on analysing the barriers to women’s leadership, the integration of a gender perspective into foreign action, and the conditions necessary to advance towards greater feminist representation and leadership. 

The conference programme will continue tomorrow, Wednesday 3 June, with a full day’s programme including two plenary sessions, ten parallel sessions and the closing session.

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