On the eve of the 79th UN General Assembly, Equal Measures 2030—a coalition of NGOs and civil society organizations, including Data2X, seeking to advance data-driven advocacy for gender equality—has released a staggering new figure: over 850 million women and girls are living in countries rated as “very poor” for gender equality, per the 2024 SDG Gender Index. From bans on secondary education to child marriage and forced pregnancy, the threat of gender-based restrictions and violence remains very real for hundreds of millions of women and gender-diverse people across the globe. Yet despite the need for urgent progress, nearly 40% of countries stagnated or declined in gender equality between 2019 and 2022, presenting global policymakers with a sobering, but palpable, possibility: women, girls, and gender-diverse people could be worse off in 2030 than when the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals were agreed in 2015.
The world’s most marginalized communities desperately need an intervention.
In a unique response to these challenges, sixteen nations worldwide have adopted groundbreaking—though sometimes vague and politically precarious—“feminist foreign policies” (FFPs) prioritizing gender equality, peace, and human rights, and this summer, governments and civil society advocates formally convened in Mexico City to share experiences and best practices. The third annual convening of its kind, the Ministerial Conference featured first-time broad agreement that FFP governments must cooperate multilaterally to disrupt anti-rights blocs from the UN to the G20. Two months later, UNGA79 will present the group’s first opportunity to do so as the Secretary-General’s long-anticipated Summit of the Future takes place, billed as the UN’s premier moment to recommit to multilateral cooperation and ultimately forge a revitalized UN fit to meet the world’s most urgent challenges.
While multilateral cooperation is a worthy goal in and of itself, the UN is, fundamentally, a consortium of member states. And it is member states whose actions will ultimately sink or swim our shared global future—whose domestic and foreign policy agendas have the power to drive peace for people and planet, or seed further conflict, climate crisis, and inequality—and whose progress will ultimately be measured come 2030 and beyond.
Against this backdrop, the stakes could not be greater. But it also means that we must seize all opportunities to make meaningful progress, which means responding to real-time shifts in bilateral policy discourse. From this perspective, feminist foreign policy isn’t just the latest fad; it’s a new school of international relations developing before our very eyes, and it represents a tremendous opportunity. If COVID-19, climate, and conflict have served as global “brakes,” feminist foreign policy and feminist multilateralism be a newfound gas pedal, accelerating our course to a more equal, peaceful, and sustainable future.
Feminist foreign policy isn’t just the latest fad; it’s a new school of international relations developing before our very eyes, and it represents a tremendous opportunity. But FFP governments are missing a critical piece of the puzzle.
Amidst this growing momentum, however, FFP governments are missing a critical piece of the puzzle, a piece that can make FFPs tangible, communicate their value and return on investment, and, in a year when half the world’s population is heading to the polls, help to insulate FFP programs and investments from election shocks: gender data.
Gender data is a core part of any feminist foreign policy, essential for developing and implementing truly inclusive FFPs. Yet many of the current policies in place fail to address data, preventing governments from tailoring evidence-based interventions, accurately measuring progress, and demonstrating transparent accountability to the communities they serve. While gender data is relevant for guiding and tracking both the external work of agencies implementing FFPs and their internal policies and practices, information about the methods that countries use to collect data for FFPs is all but absent from current frameworks.
The latest Ministerial Declaration on Feminist Foreign Policy reflects this blind spot, failing to address data and evidence as a key lever of FFP. Realizing its ambitious agenda, however—including jointly delivering a feminist implementation of the forthcoming Pact for the Future—will require strong commitment to building a monitoring, accountability, and learning agenda rooted in high-quality, regularly collected, and adequately financed gender data. A feminist approach to foreign policy also necessitates that states’ collection, analysis, and use of gender data is rooted in feminist principles, critically interrogating the power dynamics embedded in existing data systems and processes.
As UNGA79 comes and goes, the Summit of the Future will set up the first true test of FFP governments’ multilateral mettle by recommending “revitalization” of the Commission on the Status of Women, a signature initiative of Beijing+30 meant to be agreed by 2025. FFP governments have an opportunity to ask themselves: what does feminist multilateralism mean? How can they practice it as a reflection of, and a means to advance, their feminist foreign policies? And how can they center and champion data across all levers of influence as the most tangible means of realizing their commitments?
As we strive to build a better, more equitable future, it can be easy to lose optimism amidst a sea of dizzying crises and political gridlock. In convening the Summit of the Future, the Secretary-General reminds us that we cannot forget to choose hope for the world we want to create. Gender data can help us get there.
To learn more, read Data2X and Walking the Talk’s joint policy brief on gender data and feminist foreign policy.