By Rachel Kakraba
This year’s Women Deliver Conference has opened in Narrm, Melbourne, Australia, from April 27 to 30. The conference brings together political leaders, activists, advocates, funders, journalists, and young people from across the globe to discuss gender equality.
It comes at a time of rising conflict, shrinking civic space, mounting pressure on women’s rights, and growing questions about whether current systems are serving the people they are meant for. More than 5,000 delegates from over 185 countries will share strategies, build solidarity, and shape bold feminist futures.
The conference will formally launch the Melbourne Declaration, marking a shared commitment across the wider gender equality ecosystem to rebalance power, resources, and accountability so that states uphold human rights, feminist movements and civil society can hold them to account, and international actors support rather than substitute locally led change.
Speaking ahead of the official opening, CEO of Women Deliver, Dr Maliha Khan, said the conference comes at a time when there is a need to collectively discuss issues facing humanity and how the gender equality field can help address them.
“I’m looking forward to having people, world leaders, as well as grassroots activists, heads of international organisations, heads of multilateral organisations, and everybody else coming together to talk about gender equality.
“It’s something I’ve been passionate about for the last 30 years, and it’s an immense privilege to be able to host so many people from across the world, particularly in these times when we really need to discuss the crises we are all collectively facing as humanity and how the gender equality field can help move those things forward,” she added.
She expressed hope for meaningful discussions during the conference, even where there are differences in opinion.
“We all have our different lived experiences, and we all bring that into the room so that we can have those discussions and then decide where we’re going to move next. That’s more important now than ever before.”
She said events of recent years, including global pushback, the climate crisis, militarisation, and conflict, have implications for gender that must not be taken for granted.
“It’s very important that, first, we do not forget that girls, women, and gender-diverse people are affected more than anyone else by all of these crises. Second, they have to be part of the leadership of the solutions, and third, we must discuss the specific issues they face regardless of geopolitics and move those forward.”
According to her, the crises also present an opportunity for transformative change that otherwise would not have been possible, expressing hope that participants will seize the moment to move forward.
Hosted for the first time in the Oceanic Pacific, Dr Khan noted that WD2026 marks a shift in whose voices are centred at the world’s largest gatherings for gender equality.
She said the region was strategically selected to give people in different parts of the world greater access, especially as very few international conveners come to the region.
“We felt it was time to highlight not only the problems, but more importantly the solutions and the movements that exist in this region.”
Dr Khan said the conference will, in the long term, empower people to achieve transformative change that otherwise would not have been possible.
Victorian Minister for Women and Girls, Gabrielle Williams, said Victoria is proud to host Women Deliver on behalf of the Oceanic Pacific, placing the region at the centre of one of the world’s largest conversations about women and girls.
“Progress for women and girls isn’t guaranteed. It has to be fought for, built, and protected. Bringing world leaders together like this is how we keep moving forward.”
“We have a lot to learn from leaders and advocates from around the world and a lot to share as well, so we can get on with the job of delivering a better future for women and girls,” she said.
Noelene Nabulivou, Executive Director of DIVA for Equality in Nadi, Fiji, and Co-Chair of the Regional Steering Committee for WD2026, said the conference’s location is not incidental. With more than 40 years of organising across Pacific feminist, climate justice, and SRHR movements, Madam Nabulivou has been central to ensuring WD2026 centres the strategic power, joy, and resistance of Oceanic Pacific feminists.
“The Melbourne Declaration is an Oceanic Pacific call as much as it is a global one. For too long, international frameworks have spoken about our communities while decisions were made elsewhere. This Declaration demands that power, resources, and accountability flow towards the people and movements doing the work. That is what bringing Women Deliver to this region means to us.”
The Melbourne Declaration for Gender Equality is shaped through global consultation and launched as a shared political commitment to centre states’ human rights obligations, public accountability, and the leadership of national and local civil society and feminist movements.
