Recap: 2025 activities of the FFP Progressive Voices Collective

2025 marked the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The FFP Progressive Voices Collective joined the 69^th session of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) in March to highlight the role that Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) can play in advancing more equal societies. 

Co-Chairs Ann Linde, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, and Machris Cabreros, Global Coordinator at the Progressive Alliance, met with UN Women Deputy Executive Director Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda to discuss how to strengthen multilateralism and pursue the fight for gender justice and non-discrimination as core values against global setbacks. 

Members of the Collective joined the panel of the CSW69 Parallel Event “Redrawing the lines of foreign policy through feminism”: Lina Gálvez MEP, Chair of the FEMM Committee, Daniela Sepúlveda (PEFAL), Foteini Papagioti (ICRW), and Spogmay Ahmed (FFP Collaborative) highlighted how FFP helps to see the world differently and formulate feminist-informed policy approaches that benefit everyone. They emphasised the need for broad alliances to safeguard democratic institutions and values against far-right and anti-gender pushbacks. 

The question of how to strengthen and safeguard feminist achievements across countries was at the core of regular online meetings with Collective members, which served as an inspiring forum to exchange ideas and perspectives and learn about ongoing projects. 

With the launch of the EU budget negotiations for the Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2035 (MFF), we zoomed in on proposals for the Global Europe portfolio.

Going forward, the the Collective’s demands are clear: 

• gender-mainstreaming needs to be applied across all portfolios, in line with the Gender Action Plan III (and the upcoming IV);

• the current practice of gender spending targets in the NDICI funding instrument needs to be continued and aligned with the OECD Gender Markers 1 and 2 in order to track spending and assess the impact of activities that apply a gender perspective;

• in the current political climate, the essential role of civil society to counter democratic backsliding needs to be acknowledged. The next EU budget must entail ring-fenced funding for feminist organisations on the ground. 

With the negotiations around the MFF picking up speed, we look forward to building on the work done and pushing for a budget that promotes gender justice and equal rights for all. This would not be possible without the Progressive Voices Collective and the support and expertise of its Co-Chairs, partner organisations and over 60 members from across the world.