Acting together to defend and promote women's rights

Express Tribune

07-03-2025

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In 2019, France adopted a "feminist diplomacy strategy" that places gender equality and the rights of women and girls among the top priorities of its foreign policy. France's feminist diplomacy is based on the principle of equal rights – a fundamental principle of the French Republic, founded on the motto: 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity'. Our feminist diplomacy is part of our longstanding commitment to fundamental freedoms and the universality of human rights.
Announced on this International Women's Day, France's new international strategy on gender equality for the next five years will mobilise our diplomatic action globally. Bilaterally, France has set itself the ambitious goal of having 75% of its official development assistance include gender equality content.
At the multilateral level, France advocates the systematic consideration of gender equality in all forums: at the UN, the G7, the G20, the EU and other European organisations. At the UN, France is a leading country within the Commission on the Status of Women and supports ardently UN agencies such as UN Women and the United Nations Population Fund.
Gender equality and the rights of women and girls are indeed cross-cutting issues that must be promoted and defended in all areas: peace and security, climate and environment, development, democratic governance, human rights, humanitarian action, economic, financial and commercial issues, digital, culture, education, health, and food security.
In this regard, education is a priority area and our action aims to promote equality in and through education in order to foster the civic and political participation of women, as well as their economic empowerment.
Another priority is to defend women's health, including sexual and reproductive rights (SRHR), in order to affirm the absolute right of women to control their own bodies. This imperative led France to include the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy in its Constitution, on 8 March, 2024.
Because women are particularly vulnerable victims in conflict situations but also because they play a key role in conflict prevention, they must benefit from specific support. This is why, over the past five years, France has contributed 14.2 million euros to the Global Fund for Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence founded by Nobel Peace Prize winners Nadia Murad and Dr Denis Mukwege. With 4.5 million euros in 2024, France is also supporting the Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), the largest United Nations fund dedicated to feminist organisations in crisis contexts.
We will also strengthen the French Support Fund for Feminist Organizations. Since its creation in 2020, this fund has allocated 254 million euros to 1,400 associations in more than 73 countries, and has made France a leading country in funding feminist organisations.
International mobilisation on this major issue must be maintained. To this end, France will host this year the 4th Ministerial Shaping Feminist Foreign Policy Conference. After Germany (2022), the Netherlands (2023) and Mexico (2024), the conference in France will mark the commitment of a growing number of governments to feminist diplomacy and will be a unique opportunity to bring together states and civil society on women's rights.
To move forward together on this issue which concerns half of humanity, we can rely on the essential international conventions that France and Pakistan have ratified, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which are among the 27 international conventions that countries benefiting from the GSP+ agreement with the European Union, including Pakistan, have committed to implementing.
France's engagement to cooperate with Pakistan to promote women's rights has been expressed concretely through numerous actions. Following the deadly floods in the summer of 2022, the French Government provided exceptional support of 1 million euros to the actions of the World Food Program dedicated to pregnant and lactating women and, locally, the French Embassy provided financial support to the programme of the French NGO Secours Islamique (Islamic Relief) to support the economic activity of women in the district of Tharparkar (Sindh).
Furthermore, in cooperation with the Aga Khan Development Network, UNDP, UN Women, the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, the Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change and with the support of the Pakistani Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination, the French Embassy has been organising the 'Gender and Climate Award' for the past three years. This award provides financial support to women involved in the fight against climate change in Pakistan to develop their projects. The French Embassy also supports the actions of Pakistani civil society, such as those of Ms Mary GIL's Center for Law and Justice, which aim to empower young girls from families of garbage collectors through education.
Other initiatives contribute to promoting the role of women in our societies, like the Women International Film Festival in Islamabad, which the French Embassy has supported since 2022.
We have also promoted the CSR actions of four French companies in Pakistan – L'Oréal, Ipsos, Servier and Schneider – aimed at increasing the empowerment of women.
Together with our Pakistani partners, we are happy and proud to continue developing these projects and supporting these actions to pursue our common goals in promoting women's rights, freedom and dignity.