A Roadmap for Women’s Rights for the Next 30 Years
Summary
In 2025, Women’s Initiative at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics and GWL Voices committed to launching an actionable roadmap to advance the next generation of gender equality. This report comes at the 30th anniversary of the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, which resulted in the Beijing Platform for Action, a blueprint for progress for women around the world. Columbia and GWL Voices’ report offers a modern update to the platform, outlining policy priorities critical for gender equality in the 21st century. The report includes sections on democracy and human rights, technology, economic participation, and conflict and climate; provides national and regional examples of policy reform; and outlines how to accelerate action through innovative finance, improved data and research, and coalition building. Through events, curricular integration, and online dissemination, this report will reach more than 1,000 people with recommendations to inform clear, specific priorities to drive gender equality forward.
Approach
To combat global regression on gender equality and accelerate progress, Institute of Global Politics Women’s Initiative at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (IGP Women’s Initiative) and GWL Voices will launch a report offering an actionable roadmap to meet modern challenges and further the Beijing Agenda over the next thirty years.
Section I of the report outlines policy priorities critical to advancing gender equality in the 21st century—including in the areas of democracy and human rights, technology, economic participation, and conflict and climate—and provides national and regional examples of policy reform.
Section II outlines key levers to accelerate the pace of change, including innovative financing, institutional leadership and reform, coalition building, and improved data and research. The report concludes with a call to turn the aspiration of the Beijing Platform into action and fulfill the promise of women’s full and equal participation once and for all.
The report reflects on insights from a global commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the Beijing Conference co-hosted by the IGP Women’s Initiative, GWL Voices, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, Vital Voices, and Wellesley College in March 2025, which featured recommendations from world leaders and young activists at the forefront of the women’s movement.
Action Plan
The IGP Women’s Initiative will host a roundtable in September with Susana Malcorra and MarÃa Fernanda Espinosa of GWL Voices to discuss this report with Columbia IGP students in an open event entitled “Beijing+30: A Gender Equality Roadmap for the Next 30 Years.”
Jen Klein and Rachel Vogelstein from IGP Women’s Initiative will author an OpEd about the report.
Rachel Vogelstein will integrate this report into her Fall semester course, Global Gender Equality Law and Policy, and Jen Klein will integrate this report into her Spring semester course, Women’s Economic Empowerment.
The IGP Women’s Initiative will attend the Reykjavik Global Forum in November, and Jen Klein and Rachel Vogelstein will uplift the findings of this report to female parliamentarians, business leaders and academics.
Background
This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the 1995 United Nations (UN) Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, a watershed moment in the fight for gender equality. Spanning twelve critical areas—including education, health, freedom from violence, economic participation, power and leadership, and the environment—the Platform for Action which emerged from the summit created a blueprint for progress for women’s equality around the world. It outlined specific areas of policy essential to advancing concrete areas impacting women’s rights and inclusion, setting the stage for prioritization and progress. The past three decades have produced significant gains: women have won legal rights and protections in over a hundred nations, with an estimated 1,531 legal reforms enacted that advance gender equality. The gender gap in primary schooling virtually closed on a global level, giving a generation of girls access to educational opportunities that their mothers and grandmothers did not have. The maternal mortality rate declined substantially, and young women experienced the fastest increase in access to modern family planning in history (UN Women, 2025) .
Yet the work remains unfinished, and in other areas, progress has been incredibly slow. Furthermore, today women and girls face new and emerging challenges to their rights and full participation. These challenges are rising at a moment when resources, policies, and political will in support of gender equality are under attack.
Progress Update
Partnership Opportunities
The IGP Women’s Initiative and GWL Voices invite CGI commitment makers to use and amplify the report, in addition to making implementation commitments based on their four “levers for change.” In addition, they welcome partnerships that allow for public sharing and media connections to further expand the reach of the report.,The IGP Women’s Initiative and GWL Voices offer expertise on gender policy. They will offer access to this report as a manual for policy leaders, practitioners, and stakeholders seeking research-backed recommendations to advance women’s rights for the next thirty years.