The W7 2021

In 2021, the W7, one of the official G7 ‘engagement groups’, was co-chaired by the Gender and Development Network (GADN) and Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS). GADN and GAPS were working with Care International UK and ActionAid UK on the Summit. We also worked on the W7 recommendations with CSOs in G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the USA) and from many countries in the Global South.

Our objective was to ensure that G7 leaders adopt concrete political and financial commitments that lead to a tangible, lasting and transformative impact on women and girls’ lives everywhere in 2021 and beyond.

The W7 met with key decision-makers in the G7 process, including during the W7 Summit which took place virtually on 21-22 April 2021 ahead of the G7 Summit in June 2021. Over those two days, W7 participants worked together to articulate a feminist vision for the G7 and agreed on recommendations to ensure that the policy outcomes from the G7 process reflect the long-term transformative change needed to achieve gender equality. These recommendations have been compiled into the W7 2021 Communique, which you can read here.

Who was involved?

From the COVID-19 pandemic to poverty, conflict and the climate crisis, women in all their diversity, have been and continue to be at the forefront of innovative and transformative responses to today’s challenges.

The W7 Summit has brought together women in all their diversity and amplified the voices, leadership, and perspectives of those not commonly part of the G7 forum.

Building on feminist principles of intersectionality and inclusion the W7 aimed to open decision and policy-decision processes to grassroots feminist activists from around the world, ensuring that voices who are often excluded could equally engage in these spaces.

Through the drafting of recommendations, sharing of good practices and testimonies, the W7 aimed to ensure that the voices of feminists and women’s rights organizations are front and centre in the G7 process and that leaders hear them. Together, participants prepared policy recommendations and demanded that decision-makers place gender equality at the centre of the G7 while also ensuring that such policy outcomes respond to women’s realities and experiences around the world.

Parallel to the W7 in 2021, there was also a gender equality group of the G7 Global Taskforce, which GADN co-chaired. For more information on the Global Task Force contact Kel Currah, Chair G7 Global Task Force, at kel@whatworldstrategies.com.

Gender Equality Advisory Council (GEAC)

On 8 March 2021, the UK government announced the creation of the Gender Equality Advisory Council (GEAC) – led by Liz Truss at ministerial level and chaired by Sarah Sands – to lead the UK’s gender equality work at the G7.

Building on the foundations laid by the Canadian and French G7 presidencies, the GEAC aimed to champion the core principles of freedom, opportunity, individual humanity and dignity for women and girls around the world. The Council set out recommendations as to how the G7 should work together to ensure women are at the heart of the build back better agenda as we recover from COVID-19. The Council included members from each G7 country.

The membership of the GEAC was announced on 9 April 2021. Full details can be found here.

Thematic Areas of Discussion

The W7 2021 called on G7 political representatives to recognise that gender equality and the fulfillment of women’s rights is an aspiration that must be present across all priority areas.

For G7 Leaders, we framed our policy recommendations around the following priority areas, as decided by the G7:

  • Trade and Prosperity

    Promote fair and equitable trade, and cancel all outstanding sovereign debt across private, bilateral and multilateral creditors, in order to increase fiscal space for equitable economic recovery in countries across the Global South.

  • The Climate Crisis

    Provide financial support for gender-just climate action that is accessible for local and national women’s rights organisations.

  • Health and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

    Provide equitable access to vaccines, protect health and care workers - who are predominantly women, and safeguard women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights during the health crisis.

  • Open and Democratic Societies

    Enable all women to fully participate in political decision-making whether on COVID-19 recovery, economic recovery, economic policy, health or climate change and address structural racism, both domestically and internally, to ensure truly democratic societies.

For Foreign and Development Ministers, we framed our policy recommendations around the following thematic areas, reflecting some of their priorities:

  • Women’s Economic Empowerment and just COVID-19 Economic Recovery

    Ensure that COVID-19 economic recovery plans are equitable and just, providing governments in the Global South with the resources needed for a just and sustainable recovery, and recognising the centrality of the care economy to any economic recovery efforts.

  • Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG)

    Recognise that violence against women and girls is the ‘shadow pandemic’, and prioritise appropriate funding to address this structural issue.

  • Girls’ Education

    Tackle the full range of structural barriers that are preventing girls from attending and finishing school.

  • Women, Peace and Security

    Ensure the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda through funding, participation of women and girls and implementation of commitments.

  • Health and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

    Provide equitable access to vaccines, protect health and care workers, and safeguard women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights.

  • Open and Democratic Societies

    Enable all women, whatever discriminations they face, to fully participate in political decision making whether on Covid-19 recovery, economic policy, peace and security or climate change and promote decolonising relationships between the Global South and North as a means of correcting historic legacies, as well as addressing global structural racism, to ensure truly democratic societies.

  • The Climate Crisis

    Provide financial support for gender just climate action.

The W7 also made proposals to the G7 Climate, Trade and Finance Tracks.

Position Papers

In addition to the G7 Leaders’ Summit 2021, there were also a number of ‘tracks’ where other Ministers of G7 countries met. Many of them have been discussing issues relevant to the W7. These include: The Foreign Affairs and Development track, the Finance track, the Climate track, the Health track and the Trade track.

The W7 has produced interim policy papers (please see below) in consultation with colleagues from other G7 countries through the G7 Global Task Force Gender Working Group, and with colleagues from around the world through the W7 Summit Advisory Group. These interim policy papers formed the basis of the discussions that was held at the W7 Summit, and which then informed the W7’s Communique.

Summary of some of the W7s core messages

COVID-19 has exacerbated gender inequality, conflict and fragility. The G7 has an opportunity to redress this by ensuring political and funding commitments at the G7. This will require genuine gender mainstreaming throughout the G7, supported by technical gender expertise and financial commitments across the priorities.

COVID-19 has demonstrated that investing in the care economy must be central to recovery plans if prosperity is to be for all. Recognition of the centrality of care work will have to be part of the language and political commitment if the G7 economic recovery plans are to be taken seriously. We are concerned that the promotion of gender equality in relation to the COVID-19 economic recovery and women’s economic empowerment is relying solely on investment from the private sector. Meeting the needs of marginalised women in the Global South requires public investment and universal social protection, along with measures to create and regulate decent work.

Increasing amounts of gender-just climate finance, including finance that reaches women’s rights organisations, is vital. Moreover, COVID-19 economic recovery plans must tackle both the climate emergency and intersecting inequalities, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and its commitment to gender equality.

Girls' Education is important but must not obscure other areas of gender equality. Ambitious targets to end violence against women and girls should include financial support for evidence-based prevention programmes. The G7 must go beyond political commitments to Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action that have been made and not met for decades and make commitments on how it will use its ODA and support the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in full. Ensuring women’s political participation can best be attained by funding and supporting women’s rights organisations with long-term, core, flexible funding and promoting the representation and influence of local women-led movements across the whole development and humanitarian programme cycle and within decision-making processes.

Strong commitments to anti-racism and decolonisation are vital if the rights of all women and girls are to be recognised and delivered, but so far seem to be missing from the Open Society and Democracy agendas.

Women 7 (W7) Position Papers

Please note that these were interim documents prior to the W7 Summit. The final communiqué can be found here.

Position Papers from other G7 Engagement Groups

Civil Society 7 (C7)

Labour 7 (L7)

G7 Summit

The Group of Seven (G7) is a discussion forum consisting of seven of the largest world economic powers (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) organised under a rotating presidency. In addition the World Bank, the IMF and the European Union are represented.

The UK took on the G7 Presidency in 2021 and hosted the G7 Summit in Cornwall from 11 - 13 June. The UK government invited Australia, India and South Korea to attend the Leaders’ Summit as guest countries. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed the Summit's aims to unite G7 leaders to “build back better from coronavirus, uniting to make the future fairer, greener and more prosperous.” The UK government has named the following as priority areas:

  • Leading the global recovery from coronavirus while strengthening our resilience against future pandemics
  • Promoting our future prosperity by championing free and fair trade
  • Tackling climate change and preserving the planet’s biodiversity
  • Championing our shared values

In addition to the Leaders' Summit, other Ministers will also be meeting. The W7 will focus particularly on the Leaders track, the Foreign and Development Ministers track, the Climate ministers track and the Finance ministers track. This year there is no specific meeting of Gender Ministers, but gender equality has been said to be mainstreamed throughout the Summit discussions. For more information visit the G7 website.

G7 Ministerial and Official Meetings

Along with hosting the G7 Summit in June 2021, throughout the year the UK government also held a series of ministerial and official roundtable meetings between a variety of Government Ministers from the G7 countries. The W7 engaged with G7 Officials and Ministers at some of these meetings, as well as the W7 Summit:

  • 25th March: Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Working Group's Second Meeting
  • 29th - 31st March: Sherpa II Meetings
  • 31st March: Trade Track (Trade Minister Introductory Meeting)
  • 15th April: Sous Sherpa Meeting (Leaders' track)
  • 15th April: Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Working Group's Third Meeting
  • 21st - 22nd April: W7 Summit
  • 4th - 5th May: Foreign Affairs and Development Track Ministerial Meeting

G7 Official Statements