If we want multilateralism to deliver, we need feminist leadership
By Paola Salwan Daher, Senior Director for Collective Action at Women Deliver.
Multilateralism is under attack at the very moment the world needs it most.
As climate disasters intensify, wars and genocides multiply in all impunity, and inequality deepens, the very structure that should allow States to work together for global solutions is being weakened. Excluding women from these decision-making spaces doesn’t just worsen the crisis — it guarantees failure.
Take the top tiers of global leadership: 19 major international organizations have never had a woman in the top leadership role. Only 7% of the more than 2,800 permanent representatives to the United Nations since 1947 have been women. And 73 countries have never appointed a female ambassador to the UN.1 Yet women have shaped international governance from the start. From the signing of the UN Charter in 1945 to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, women from across the globe played a pivotal role in embedding principles of freedom, equality, and non-discrimination.
It is not about ticking boxes or participation for its own sake. These numbers and trends expose a deeper truth: the lingering and enduring nature of gender-based discrimination within multilateralism — discrimination that has weakened the system itself and made it increasingly porous to attacks.
Multilateralism goes beyond the UN corridors. It affects people’s daily lives in countless ways. It enables cross-border action on maternal health, keeps sexual and reproductive health services running in humanitarian crises, and sets global standards to prevent gender-based violence. It underpins climate responses that protect women’s livelihoods, education initiatives that keep girls in school during conflict, and accountability mechanisms that uphold women’s human rights when national systems fail.
Despite their flaws, these systems have historically served as useful tools within broader feminist strategies: amplifying demands, securing accountability, and developing global norms to advance girls’ and women’s rights.
So, what happens when women, feminists, and women human rights defenders are not in those international rooms?
Policies are shaped without those most affected by them. Climate finance overlooks gendered reproductive labor, care burdens and women’s livelihoods. Humanitarian responses fail to prioritize sexual and reproductive health and rights. The political expertise, savviness, mobilization and organization power of feminist activists are ignored. When women are excluded from multilateral decision-making, it exacerbates gender-based discrimination, with a direct impact on multilateral outcomes and policies.
Instead of reinforcing international cooperation, many governments are reverting back to focusing on self-interest and to a hegemonic masculinity form of governance — sidelining women’s voices and amplifying anti-rights agendas. Recently, the United States announced its withdrawal from 66 international organizations and treaties, including bodies central to climate, health, and gender equality. This retreat signals a dangerous erosion of shared responsibility at precisely the moment global coordination is urgent, and it confirms the trend toward far-right and fascistic agendas.
Multilateralism has long been constrained by colonial, geopolitical and economic agendas, entrenched inequalities, colonial legacies, and the failure to implement political agreements. So how do we ensure these global spaces no longer exclude primarily affected people?
A feminist response to a failing system
Multilateral spaces have traditionally been dominated by people from the Global Minority who do not fully understand the complex challenges faced by adolescent girls and women worldwide. As these systems collapse, feminists are organizing to build new structures that finally center those most affected.
How? By challenging power structures and changing who is in the room, whose voices are heard, and how decisions are made. 2025 was the year to identify what’s broken, and 2026 is now the year of action.
That’s why we are co-creating a collective declaration, a Global Feminist Playbook, articulating our shared vision for gender equality and justice. It will define the world that girls, women, and gender-diverse people need, and the concrete actions the international development sector must take to get there.
This is one of many conversations we must have to dismantle the oppressive dynamics imposed by patriarchy, racism, capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, fascism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, and other systems of oppression.
We are diagnosing the sector’s current failings to ensure they are not repeated in our new vision. We are using Women Deliver’s convening power to respond to what the world is demanding. This is just one offering to the sector of the many to come.
Transforming multilateralism requires feminist spaces
As multilateral systems collapse under the weight of fractured trust, eroding accountability, and exclusionary decision-making, feminist movements are doing what we have always done: organizing to reclaim power and to transform.
That’s why our upcoming Women Deliver 2026 Conference is not just a conference — it is a feminist response to a failing global system, and a space to collectively reimagine how power, leadership, and accountability must work.
In April, in Narrm (Melbourne), we will reflect on how far we’ve come, share insights from the Playbook process, and commit to building the future we envision together.
Since 2007, Women Deliver Conferences have brought together more than 30,000 advocates, policymakers, and leaders from around the world to influence gender equality agendas. It is a space where every voice matters — from civil society and youth-led groups to philanthropy and multilateral agencies — ensuring decisions reflect on-the-ground realities, not just the interests of the powerful. These Conferences provide a global space for intergenerational dialogue, connecting actors such as women leaders within the multilateral system with emerging activists and adolescent advocates who will shape the future of global governance.
As we navigate complex challenges ranging from human rights abuses to climate change, it is clear: women’s leadership is not just beneficial, it is essential. Feminist movements are holding many forts, and shaping global governance and cooperation is one of them.
No country has yet achieved gender equality. In a world shaken by aggressions against Venezuela to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, from Sudan to Ukraine, multilateralism is not simply under pressure — it is under attack. And yet, the world needs it more than ever. Women’s leadership in these spaces is not optional. Without it, global solutions will continue to fall short of justice, resilience, and accountability.
