This Policy Dialogue — hosted by Spain, and the final in a series of three dialogues leading up to the Glion XI retreat in October — will focus on:

The Dialogue will take place on:
3 September 2025

Permanent Mission of Spain (Avenue Blanc 53, 1202). 

This third pre-Glion policy dialogue will examine how the UN human rights system and its mechanisms can be leveraged and mobilised to address the growing complexity of the current global landscape, and its implications for the enjoyment of human rights by women and girls. Amid growing global pushback on women’s rights and weakening protections against gender-based violence, the need to safeguard and increase financing for gender equality has become critical. With an estimated $360 billion per year needed to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment by 2030, the role of the UN human rights system, including the human rights mechanisms, has rarely been so important.

Participants will examine how States can strengthen their engagement with the mechanisms and how that engagement can, in turn, promote legislative, institutional, and policy reforms in support of gender equality. By situating the dialogue within the broader financing for development agenda, and by drawing on the outcomes of FfD4, the third pre-Glion policy dialogue will highlight how financing and human rights must be mutually reinforced, in order to contribute to advancing gender-responsive ‘human rights-powered approaches’ to sustainable development – approaches that are sustainable and able to respond to today’s global challenges.

Key questions for discussion:

1. What is the current situation for financing for development, and within that, financing for human rights, and in particular for gender equality, and women’s rights?

2. Are reductions in financing for development, including for gender equality, and women’s and girl’s rights, linked with a broader national and international backlash against normative and practical progress in the enjoyment of those rights?

3. What were the conclusions of FfD4 in this regard, and what steps were agreed to address the situation?

4. At a time of reduced financial contributions to the international development and human rights systems, what role can a ‘human rights-based’ or ‘human rights powered’ approach to development play, to secure greater efficiencies, and secure and demonstrate greater impact?

5. How can UN member States, including developed and developing States, and traditional and non-traditional donors, UN agencies and programs, IFIs, and others, work together to better leverage State engagement with the UN human rights mechanisms, to drive progress with gender equality, and women’s and girls’ rights, and sustainable development leaving no-one behind, even in the current financial context?