Local Leaders gather to define priorities on women’s political participation and social transformation towards Beijing+30 and beyond

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Local Leaders gather to define priorities on women’s political participation and social transformation towards Beijing+30 and beyond

On 31 January 2025, under the umbrella of the WYDE Women’s Leadership initiative, mayors, local elected women and their networks and teams from across the globe met to set the key priorities of the political agenda of the Feminist Municipalist Movement for 2025 and beyond, including CSW69 and the commemoration of Beijing+30.

Over 100 participants - women and men mayors and local leaders, elected representatives, their teams, UCLG sections, and WYDE partners - were reunited online last Friday, 31 January 2025, to discuss the current state of, remaining challenges, and steps to be taken for gender equality agendas to be met, including ODD5 and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

Under the WYDE Women’s Leadership initiative, framed by UN Women and co-funded by the European Union, this two-hour online consultation aimed at facilitating joint reflection and discussion with networks of locally elected women, through a Future Envisioning Exercise with networks of locally elected women entitled “Empowering Local Women Leaders: Priorities for Political Participation and Social Transformation”. It allowed identifying and reflecting on priorities of the Feminist Municipal Movement for capacity-building, transforming social norms and overall contribution to Beijing+30 review process and commemoration. The outcomes of the consultation also contributed to the WYDE Expert Group Meeting and framework on social norms on women’s political participation led by UN Women.

WYDE Women’s Leadership: leveraging alliances to enhance women participation in political and public life

More specifically, the session permitted to share information on the participation of UCLG to the WYDE Women’s Leadership initiative, including the objectives of the programme and a roadmap for upcoming activities including the mobilisation of the LRG constituency to the 69th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) to be celebrated from 10 to 21 March 2025 and the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Action Platform. It also explored local strategies aiming at transforming social norms for women’s engagement in political and public life at the local level, and to collectively define capacity-building priorities for local women leadership through a large consultation process.

Opening the meeting UCLG Secretary General Emilia Saiz emphasised equality as the key cornerstone for any society and democratic system and stressed the natural evolution of the municipalist movement to a feminist movement that put as a priority the significative shifts needed at the institutional level and the type of leadership we need to achieve equality for all, including to transform social norms and ensure inclusive and representative decision-making at all levels. She also highlighted the crucial role of networks, in particular women’s local leaders organisations, in driving this change with a solidarity and integral approach, building capacities and leveraging women’s power worldwide.

Estela Bulku, Programme Manager, WYDE Women’s Leadership, UN Women gave some insights on the WYDE initiative, recalling several of its main goals and key strategies to meet them, including the collaborative approach and the consolidation of partnership synergies, and building on ongoing initiatives to maximise impact, resource allocation and advocacy reach in order to effectively address gender stereotypes and biased social norms, violence and discrimination, and transforming paths to enhance women’s leadership.

Following, Lina Andeer, Expert on Gender Equality at the European Commission, stressed the added value of the programme which aims at leveraging convening powers of partners to revert current sociocultural patterns that prevent women from getting full access to significative decision-making spheres and/or fully exercise their right to take an active role in political and public life. She welcomed the involvement of UCLG as the space for local and regional governments to make their voice heard, acknowledging its added value regarding ensuring diversity and representativity in the WYDE Women’s Leadership Initiative.

Cécile Roth, UCLG Focal Point for Equality recalled the agenda of activities foreseen by UCLG for 2025 regarding women’s leadership and political participation at the local level, which will structure around three main axis: supporting the networks of locally elected women and amplifying their action and impact by providing them spaces to connect and opportunities for movement building; creating knowledge and capacity-building, fostering feminist leadership and inclusive local policy-making; and convene dialogues to transform social norms with youth, men, and civil society: building blocks for equitable local democracies and feminist societies.

WYDE FEE Social transformation and women's leadership

Priorities for Transforming Social Norms for Women’s Political Participation at Local Level

Then, the first segment of the session opened the insights of Mayor of Quilmes Mayra Mendosa, who stated that “sorority must be a political practice", and that “feminist municipalism is about fighting against the invisibilisation and normalisation of violence, towards the creation of safer and enabling environments that allow everybody to exercise their right to participate to political and public life”. Mayor of Oss, Wobine Buijs argued that “gender-biased norms are still so deeply ingrained in our societies that it is urgent to cocreate smart strategies to avoid advocacy work on gender equality to be reduced to a ‘women's issue’ and discredited, as it is still oftenly the case". Following, Élise Pereira Nunes, Deputy Mayor of Tours for Gender Equality and International Relations, Vice President for Citizen Transition and Democracy at Tours Métropole, and Chair of the Gender Thematic Group at CUF, recalled that "Local leaders are in a unique position to generate local cultures of equality by increasing women accessibility and participation through intersectional approaches."

The consultation process also welcomed the voices of Governor of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas and member of CONGOPE Johanna Núñez, Deputy Mayor of Sebkha and member of the YELO Network Aissata Ba, Mayor of San Mateo Atenco, Vice President of FENAMM and President of the National Network of Women Mayors of Mexico Ana Aurora Muñiz Neira, Deputy Mayor of Cocody and Co-President for Gender Equality at the IOPD Nelly Ouassenan, Secretary for Women of Mexico City Dafne Cuevas and Vice Mayor of Niterói Isabel Swan.

Priorities for Building Capacities: Enhancing Women's Leadership and Gender Mainstreaming in Local Governance

The second part of the session opened with the introductory words of Gertrude Rose, Secretary General of the East African Local Governments Association, who stressed "the role of networks and partnerships as crucial, and along with it the need to foster and improve the active engagement of global partners with local governments and civil society organisations, reflecting collectively on what does gender mainstreaming means".

The segment, moderated by Ana Falú, Advisor on Gender, UCLG-UBUNTU, then opened with reflections from Emil Broberg, Councillor of the region of Östergotland, member of the UCLG Standing Committee on Gender Equality and the CEMR Standing Committee on Equality of Women and Men in Local Life, who stressed the need to continue go beyond having 50% of women in elected seats and decision-making positions in order to ensure a higher place of gender equality in development agendas, making sure to include men in the process, and he invited the participants to join the Gender Conference organised in Stockholm in September 2025.

UCLG-ASPAC Secretary General Bernadia Tjandradewi explained priorities of Asia-Pacific members and presented some of the results from the consultation process conducted in the region, including regarding capacity-building and mentorship programmes, as well as advocacy, monitoring and institutional efforts towards equality agendas, and UCLG European regional section CEMR representative Lise Jerlin presented the main results of a study led in Europe on the representation of women at the local level (in EU countries and around), which includes a specific focus on gender violence in political and public life.

Feeding the discussions, Neila Akrimi, Chair of the UCLG-CIB working group and Director of CILG-VNGi shared some pitfalls to avoid if we want to ensure the effective implementation of equality in governance and democratic processes, including tokenism, ignoring specifities and social contexts and intersectionality, neglecting men’s involvement, underfunding initiatives and focusing on short-term. Head of Development Cooperation Office at Diputació de Barcelona Margarida Barceló added that women’s empowerment can not happen without guaranteeing adequate funding, transversal perspective, the inclusion of gender-disaggregated data, and scaled capacity-building and specific training.

Concluding, Emilia Saiz wrapped up the session putting emphasis on the need to put care systems at the heart of changing the way in which we are looking at gender norms in public service provision and go beyond care work. She reaffirmed that financing capacity-building, mainstreaming gender into local public policies and connecting with justice systems and legal frameworks (including addressing electoral rules) remain at the core of political priorities towards the achievement of gender equality agendas and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

Ways forward towards equality for all, everywhere: Shaping the Future of Women’s Local Leadership

Building on the priorities identified during the consultation, our roadmap for UCLG activities within WYDE Women’s Leadership will focus on:

🔴 Empowering women and youth while renewing leadership models

🔴 Engaging men in redefining masculinities for gender equality

🔴 Placing Local Care Systems at the core of public policies to drive change

🔴 Working with public institutions and political parties to expand women’s engagement in politics.

Together, we are weaving a future where gender equality is embedded in local governance and renews global leadership.

Those discussions and contributions will directly feed the agenda of the Feminist Municipal Movement for 2025 and beyond, including in the mobilisation for the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69), the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Action Platform, and the UN Women Expert Group Meeting for the elaboration of a global framework on social norms and women political participation. This Future Envisioning Exercise paves the way to equality and the localization of the Sustainable Development Goals, around a strong, globally shared feminist agenda for equality and care, strategically aligning with UCLG Pact for the Future for Humanity, and contributing to the UCLG Local Social Covenant.

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