Communiqué W20 2025
In the spirit of Ubuntu, we recognise that nations must work together and that
no one should be left behind. Now is the time to bring our collective humanity to bear
to address widespread poverty and underdevelopment and fulfil the promises that the
full engagement of women brings to the world.
W20 2025 calls upon G20 leaders to advance the following cross-cutting areas:
Financing for equality. Ensure consistent, adequate, and long-term financing for
equality to fulfil the commitments of the Beijing Platform for Action and the 2030
Agenda, enabling transformative progress for women and girls globally.
Collect and analyse disaggregated data across the G20 countries. Increase
investment in capacity-building for gender mainstreaming, with a strong focus on
enhancing gender analysis and improving the systematic collection, accessibility, analysis,
dissemination, and use of high-quality, reliable, and comparable data disaggregated by
sex, race, education, age and disability.
Accountability for gender mainstreaming at the global and country levels. Establish
robust, system-wide accountability frameworks and shared standards to enhance
dialogue and the exchange of best practices, thereby integrating women’s perspectives
across all areas of work.
New proposed 2035 minimum targets to replace the Brisbane Goals, to be tracked
by the OECD and ILO, henceforth to be known as the Johannesburg Goals:
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Reduce the female labour force participation gap by 35% by 2035.
Reduce the gender wage gap by 35% by 2035.
Reduce the unpaid care gap by 35% by 2035.
Eradicate modern slavery as a grave and inhumane injustice disproportionately
borne by women and girls. Addressing forced labour, trafficking, and forced marriage
is a precondition for fair markets, resilient supply chains, and inclusive growth. The
G20 must implement robust due diligence and trade measures, invest in care and
decent work, and support survivor-led solutions to ensure that no economy is built on
exploitation.W20 strongly urges G20 Leaders to act on the following priority areas for all
women and girls:
Entrepreneurship and Financial Inclusion. Improving gender balance in
entrepreneurship could have a 6% return on investment up to $5 trillion. This will
increase local job creation, tax revenues, boost innovation, drive macroeconomic gains
and contribute to community well-being by reinvesting in education, health, and family
welfare.
1. Accelerate entrepreneurship ecosystems with inclusive legal, policy, and
regulatory frameworks to provide enhanced opportunities for women entrepreneurs
from start-up to scaling through growth. Secure equal rights to asset ownership
and finance. Develop tailored programs for women in business training centers to
include education and mentoring in finance, entrepreneurship, and emerging sectors
(artificial intelligence, blue and green economies, care economy, and space).
2. Expand access to finance. Unlock more local currency debt and equity financing for
women-led SMEs and growth startups by working across financial service providers,
regulators, development banks and ecosystem actors and deploying blended finance,
fiscal incentives and innovative financing approaches enabled by sex-disaggregated
data. Increase adoption of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative’s WE Finance
Code and expand its scope.
3. Promote public procurement and market access by setting, implementing,
tracking and communicating progress on national targets for public procurement
from women-led businesses, and expanding and tracking women’s access to local
and international markets through e-commerce, trade fairs, networks, and value
chains.
The Care Economy. The provision of care is unequal and gendered, yet for every dollar
invested in care services, global GDP could increase by an average of 3.76 dollars,
benefiting women, care recipients, and the economy. A coordinated, multi-stakeholder
approach is required for the provision of inclusive, high-quality, and accessible care that
addresses systemic inequalities.
1. Increase investment in comprehensive care and support systems to 10% of
national income by 2030, integrating education, healthcare, and social services.
This should be done by increasing public investment, optimising macroeconomic
policy tools to mobilise fiscal resources, leveraging public-private models, and
adopting innovative technological solutions.
2. Promote the overall reduction and equal redistribution of unpaid care work
to reduce the unpaid care gap by 35% by 2035 through government policies that
address harmful social norms and encourage co-responsibility in caregiving and
domestic work. This includes increasing paid parental leave and childcare services
to close the childcare policy gap by 35% by 2035.
3. Recognise, measure, and evaluate women’s care work contribution to
GDP, particularly unpaid and informal care work, through the systematic collection
and analysis of comparable disaggregated data (e.g., time use surveys). This data
substantiates the economic value for paid and unpaid care, contributes to better
understanding of care delivery models, and informs new areas of the care economy.
4. Reward paid care work and promote and protect the dignity of care workers
through the adoption of international labour standards and national policies that up-
skill, prevent violence against all women and girls, and improve working conditions
with fair employment and pay, decent work, and inclusive social protection.Education, STEM and the Digital Divide. Closing the usage gap across G20 countries
is estimated to add at least USD2.3 trillion to GDP by 2030 while closing the gap
in mobile internet adoption for women across all low- and middle-income countries
(LMICs) is estimated to add USD1.3 trillion to GDP. Yet despite G20 commitments to
halve the digital gender gap by 2030, implementation and financing gaps persist. These
gaps are underpinned by harmful social stereotypes and norms that impact women and
girls at all levels of education, especially in the STEM fields, as well as in an increasingly
AI-driven digital economy.
1. Implement fully funded national digital inclusion programmes that equip
especially rural and underserved women and girls with basic and advanced digital
skills, while addressing handset and data affordability and access to connectivity
through subsidies, innovative financing, and inclusive policy reform in consultation
with the private sector and civil society.
2. Mandate targeted national scholarships and funding schemes for women
and girls -especially those from marginalised communities – pursuing high-growth
STEM fields such as AI, electronic engineering and informatics, and digital innovation
spanning the course of education to employment.
3. Develop a Global Index on AI and Gender Equality to track, report progress
and drive accountability across G20 countries. National governance frameworks
should be based on principles of responsible and ethical AI, address inclusive and
gender-representative data for AI, drive women’s participation in AI development
and decision making, and include assessment of gender impacts throughout the AI
lifecycle.
Climate Justice, Environment and Food Security. G20 nations have committed to
reducing emissions and accelerating the transition to renewable energy with a gender
perspective. At the same time, women’s contributions to climate action, food systems
and the circular economy are often underrecognised and underfunded. Climate action,
net-zero, and zero hunger targets can only be achieved with the inclusion of women as
users, landowners, producers, innovators, leaders and decision-makers.
1. Deploy an inclusive Just Transition to increase women’s full and equal
participation in energy value chains to 50% by 2030. Promote investments
in innovation, technology, infrastructure, mining and minerals beneficiation, and
manufacturing critical to decarbonisation and transitioning to renewable energy,
with measurable outcomes for women’s participation.
2. Recalibrate finance architectures, to increase the efficiency of funding for
women to reduce disaster risks, strengthen adaptive capacities, enable a just energy
transition and food security. Allocate targeted financial resources and engage women
in funding governance and processes.
3. Develop technological and nature-based solutions, by leveraging women’s
untapped leadership and knowledge to achieve sustainable food systems and a just
energy transition, e.g., biofuels derived from aquaculture and agricultural waste and
regenerative farming.
4. Advance land rights for women. Strengthening laws to secure land ownership
would unlock women’s economic empowerment by enabling access to carbon markets
which would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mobilise climate finance.
5. Support gender-responsive blue economy policies and financing that promote
women’s economic empowerment as well as recognise and invest in women’s
leadership, livelihoods, and knowledge in sustainable ocean-based sectors.Health Equity for Women and Girls. Investing in health equity for women and girls
can generate up to US$1 trillion in annual economic returns by reducing healthcare
costs, boosting workforce productivity, and ensuring appropriate access to prevention
and care. Ensuring equal health opportunities empowers women and girls to participate
fully in society and the economy, fueling sustainable growth and long-term fiscal stability.
1. Institutionalise gender-responsive health systems for smarter investment.
Endorse sex- and gender-based analysis in all health policies, programmes, and
innovations. Adopt disaggregated data, inclusive clinical research, and equity in AI
and digital health. Conduct systemic evidence-based research to identify gaps in
health systems – including diagnosis and treatment plans – to reduce inefficiencies,
improve outcomes, and increase returns on health spending.
2. Guarantee universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights
(SRHR) to unlock human capital. Provide funding to ensure universal access to
comprehensive SRHR as per the definition of the World Health Organisation (WHO) by
removing legal, financial, and social constraints; strengthening primary healthcare;
and prioritising access for all women and girls to reduce preventable deaths and boost
education and workforce participation. SRHR must be fully integrated into national
policies and programmes, ensuring all people have access to the information and
services they need to make informed decisions.
3. Address the mental health of women and girls to strengthen workforce
resilience. Integrate mental health into universal health coverage through
community-based, trauma-informed, and scalable models. Address root causes –
violence, poverty, HIV stigma, unpaid care – to improve intergenerational well-being,
school retention, and economic resilience.
4. Harness environmental and digital health Innovation by aligning national
policies and budgets to ensure women and girls benefit from climate-smart
technologies, clean environments, and safe, inclusive digital tools.
Eradicate Violence Against all Women and Girls (VAWG). VAWG is not only a
personal tragedy, It weakens the social fabric, impedes progress, and drains up to 3.7%
of global GDP. It is a collective crisis demanding urgent, united action. G20 member
states must urgently pass and enforce comprehensive legislation that not only holds
perpetrators accountable but also ensures survivors are met with justice, care, and
dignity. VAWG must be treated as a public health emergency.
1. Invest in protection, care, support, and healing systems and services for
women and child survivors of violence: Significant increase in funding for safe
shelters, trauma-informed counselling, legal aid, and comprehensive trauma-
sensitive healthcare, including in cities, rural, marginalised, and underserved areas.
2. End Technology-Facilitated Violence Against Women and Girls. Formally
recognise online and digital forms of VAWG as crimes in their own right by
criminalising cyberstalking, image-based abuse (including deep fakes), online
harassment, and enforce existing laws. National legal frameworks must be aligned
to prevent jurisdictional loopholes that allow perpetrators to evade accountability
across borders.
3. Advance women’s leadership in conflict, migration, and humanitarian
crises. Ensure the consistent, and meaningful implementation of United Nations
Security Council Resolution 1325. Women’s full participation and leadership in peace
processes, and humanitarian crises is essential for building inclusive and sustainable
solutions that serve everyone.
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