6000 feminists gathered in Naarm for Women Deliver - what comes next?
For a week in April, Melbourne Convention Centre in Naarm transformed into a global headquarters for gender equality movements. Together we shared stories, gained knowledge and mobilised for our collective resistance.
Against a backdrop of Autumn sunshine, 6123 gender equality advocates from 189 countries streamed in and out of panel discussions, workshops and exhibition booths during a busy week at Women Deliver 2026.
Delegates came with diverse perspectives and agendas, but a common thread was advancing gender equality in a time of polycrisis.
From the frontlines of the climate crisis and gender-based violence epidemics, to growing anti-rights movements and shrinking global aid funding, some of the biggest hurdles to progress were discussed alongside strategies to overcome them.
“The theme is Change Calls us Here, and that is indeed true.”
- IWDA CEO Nayomi Kanangarra
So after a week of feminist solidarity and conspiring for a better world, what comes next?
Here is just some of the work we'll be focused on after Women Deliver.
1. Maintain the spotlight on the Pacific
While the Oceanic Pacific region is often overlooked on the global stage, it was front and centre at this year’s Women Deliver with more than 40% of delegates coming from the region.
We were proud to stand alongside women’s rights leaders and activists from all of our partner organisations in the Pacific who shared their stories, lessons and insights.
Our ongoing work in the region includes our involvement in the We Rise Coalition – a partnership of six feminist organisations in the Pacific. At Women Deliver, we joined a session to outline our common agenda, including building solidarity to advance women’s human rights across the Pacific.
IWDA partners also led various sessions: Women’s Rights Action Movement shared their work on increasing women’s political representation in Solomon Islands; Voice for Change shared lessons on leadership pathways for young women in the highlands of Papua New Guinea; and Nazareth Centre for Rehabilitation explained their model of engaging with men and boys to prevent gender-based violence in Bougainville and beyond.
IWDA is also proud of our partnerships in Asia – staff from 6 of our partner organisations in Asia also joined the Conference. On the margins of Women Deliver, advocates from our Myanmar partner organisations met with the Australian Ambassador for Gender Honourable Michelle O’Byrne, to discuss Australia’s role in supporting them as frontline humanitarian responders in often overlooked ethnic regions.
First Nations and Indigenous Women's voices, knowledges, leadership and cultural strength were shared throughout the conference. In a standalone statement released at the end of the week, First Nations and Indigenous women declared their ongoing demands including full participation of Indigenous women in governance at all levels, protection of Indigenous women human rights defenders, return of land and waters, access to resource rights and access to culturally grounded health systems:
“From sovereignty to solidarity, we carry the strength of our ancestors and the futures of our children. We are not asking for inclusion in systems that have harmed us. We are transforming them. We assert jurisdiction. We uphold sovereignty of our lands, our bodies, and our futures. We define justice. We are ready.”
2. Progress feminist climate justice
IWDA joined with collaborators to launch the Feminist Climate Collective (FeCC) at Women Deliver. The Collective exists to advocate for transformative solutions while building and strengthening a movement for feminist climate justice in Australia.
At Women Deliver, we came together at the buzzing Climate Hub throughout the week to hear stories of life under a changing climate, map the rise of gender and climate backlash, and contribute recommendations to the Australian Government ahead of COP 31 in November. While Turkiye will host COP 31, Australia holds an influential role as President of Negotiations. We were pleased to be joined by Special Envoy for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience the Hon Kate Thwaites MP as the community of global feminists and gender equality advocates presented their vision for what Australia’s Presidency of Negotiations should deliver through the COP31 process.
FeCC’s key demands to the Australian Government include centring and funding First Nations climate leadership, developing a ten-year roadmap to advance gender responsive climate action, and rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels to comply with a genuine 1.5°C commitment.
3. Advance an inclusive data revolution
Much of the ambition championed at Women Deliver relies on access to better data. This is data that is individual-level, gender-sensitive and intersectional – data that fully shows the realities of people’s lives. IWDA’s Equality Insights program has been leading advocacy for inclusive data for gender equality in the region for more than a decade, and we have developed a survey tool to make this vision a reality.
As part of its work on inclusive data, Equality Insights has spearheaded the formation of the iCount Coalition, a diverse group of organisations, governments and networks working to realise a global development data framework that tells the story of all of us, not just some of us.
We gathered at our iCount Coalition booth at Women Deliver to speak with hundreds of delegates about the power of inclusive data and invited people to join the movement for inclusive data and to #CountMeIn
Plus, we invited people to come and play our interactive card game Count Me In! to experience the value of individual-level measurement.
At Women Deliver, Equality Insights co-hosted a pre-conference on creating data-driven storytelling for real-world impact. We were also involved in sessions on feminist futures in the age of AI, feminist data for climate justice and inclusive data as a tool for resistance.
In just a few weeks, the Equality Insights team will join the data community in Kenya for the Global Data Festival to continue joint work on unlocking the power of inclusive data for effective policy decisions.
4. Drive increased funding to feminist movements
Women Deliver proved once again that Pacific feminist movements are delivering transformative change against all odds. They have the leadership and expertise to overcome the myriad of crises on their doorstep, yet they remain drastically underfunded. The most recent figures show less than 0.2% of all aid to the Pacific region flows to women-led groups delivering frontline work on gender justice, climate resilience, peace-building and more.
To counter this funding gap, IWDA has joined with Urgent Action Fund – Asia & Pacific and the Pacific Feminist Fund to collaborate as the ResourceFULL Collective. Together we are bridging funders and regional feminist movements, to ensure more resources reach the people already shaping a gender-just future.
Ahead of Women Deliver, we launched new research highlighting the powerful impact of Pacific feminist movements, and the type of funding that can enable this work to flourish.
The ResourceFULL Collective invites philanthropy to answer the call from the Pacific frontlines and join us in securing AUD 48 million for feminist movements across 24 countries in the Oceanic Pacific. Together we can move beyond funding stand-alone projects to transforming the structures that hold us back.
5. Counter the anti-rights movement
While feminists attending Women Deliver came from hundreds of cultures and contexts, a prevailing topic was the rise of anti-rights movements.
"The rolling back of women's rights is...overt, strategic and being attempted in bounding leaps. So we must push back in the same way and find the courage to take bounding leaps as well.
We must not let the next five or ten years solidify the retrenchment of women's rights."
Former Prime Minister Julia Gilliard told delegates.
More than 650 organisations have signed on to The Melbourne Declaration – a joint statement coming out of Women Deliver.
The declaration provides a snapshot of the context in which we are operating, stating that “governments and political actors are actively rolling back, ignoring and undermining human rights… This moment demands that we come together with a long-term strategy for transformation.”
IWDA is committed to working alongside movement actors in Australia and globally to counter the anti-rights movement, particularly the spread of ‘anti-gender’ sentiments.
We have a campaign underway on this very topic, so download our resources to learn how to drown out the hate and organise for hope.
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