With a call to fundamentally rebalance how the world delivers gender equality, the Women Deliver 2026 Conference (WD2026) opens today in Narrm, Melbourne.
At the heart of the Conference is the forthcoming Melbourne Declaration for Gender Equality, shaped through global consultation and launched as a shared political commitment to center States’ human rights obligations, public accountability, and the leadership of national and local civil society and feminist movements.
WD2026 brings together political leaders, activists, advocates, funders, journalists, and young people from across the globe 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 to.
Grounded in the leadership of First Nations communities and the Oceanic Pacific, the theme Change Calls Us Here signals a Conference shaped by truth-telling, local leadership, and a determination to move beyond conversation to accountability, solidarity, and action.
Setting the scene for four days of urgent discussion, Women Deliver CEO, Maliha Khan said, “The system that housed our victories created a model of dependency, making millions reliant on donors and organisations headquartered thousands of miles away rather than building the conditions for States to be held accountable to the people.
“Much of the gender equality ecosystem became defanged politically, led by donor priorities, and kept power with former colonizing powers. When sustained opposition arrived, the institutional architecture fell apart.”
Khan said the Conference is not a moment for mourning. “We have secured the impossible before, and we will do it again. We choose courage over caution, solidarity over spectacle, and joy over despair.”
Hosted for the first time in the Oceanic Pacific, WD2026 marks a shift in whose voices are centered at the world’s largest gatherings for gender equality.
Victorian Minister for Women and Girls, The Hon Gabrielle Williams, said Victoria is proud to host Women Deliver on behalf of the Oceanic Pacific, putting the region at the heart 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,” said Minister Williams.
The Melbourne Declaration will be formally launched at the close of the Conference, 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 for locally led change.
In closing, Khan said: “What we’re asking of you all is to make this moment of crisis a moment of possibility.
The Melbourne Declaration is a shared commitment to rebuild a gender equality ecosystem too often shaped by donor priorities and weak accountability to people and to root what comes next in human rights, solidarity, and the leadership of those most affected by injustice.”
