W7 Releases Communique Ahead of G7 Summit: Urges Gender-Just Economic Action and Global Accountability
Ottawa, April 29, 2025 — Today, the W7 Organizing Committee formally delivered its 2025 Communique to representatives at Global Affairs Canada, including Cindy Termorshuizen, Deputy Minister for the G7 Summit and Personal Representative of the Prime Minister (Sherpa) for the G7 and G20 Summits. This marks a critical step toward influencing the priorities of the upcoming G7 Summit June 13-15 in Kananaskis, Alberta.
The Communique, based on the work of previous W7s and with input from activists from around the world, calls on G7 governments to confront the deepening global inequality crisis through bold, gender-just economic policies and urgent action on climate, care, and digital equity.
“In an era of rising inequalities, poverty still bears a distinctly female face,” the Communique states, emphasizing that macroeconomic constraints continue to undermine progress on gender equality and climate justice. Despite decades of global development, 3.5 billion people remain below the poverty line—unchanged since 1990—and one in ten women lives in extreme poverty.
Structural Change, Not Symbolic Commitments
The W7 urges the G7 leaders to prioritize systemic reform over symbolic gestures. The Communique includes general recommendations and outlines key policy actions in six areas: Democracy and support for human rights; Building just and equitable economies; Climate justice; Peace and security; Emerging technology; and Accountability and financing.
The W7’s Recommendations include:
- Increasing ambition to both systematically and explicitly ensure attention to women’s human rights, LGBTQIA+ rights and gender justice issues across all G7 discussions and address gender equality priorities as a key standalone agenda. It is not ‘either/or.’
- Strengthening coherence of policies and actions across all major G7 discussions, documents, and priority areas, noting gender equality priorities throughout.
- Recognizing that progress on gender justice is required to address today’s global challenges. Gender justice forms part of good solutions. A gender just world is more secure, sustainable and prosperous.
- Backing rhetoric with concrete commitments, actions and resources, both monetary and non-monetary (including resources for feminist movements, organizations and networks).
- Demonstrating leadership and policy coherence based on gender justice and universal human rights and fundamental freedoms both domestically and globally. In order to be credible, consistency across foreign and domestic policy areas is needed.
- Strengthening (and investing in) gender and age-disaggregated data in order to track and monitor change.
Human Rights at a Crossroads
The W7 Communique also warns of increasing threats to the rights of women and LGBTQIA+ people and democracy. “Women’s rights are under siege. The poison of patriarchy is back – and it is back with a vengeance,” stated UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Across the globe, anti-gender and anti-rights movements are gaining traction—undermining human rights, promoting authoritarianism, and silencing feminist voices.
“Autocrats target feminists and gender justice advocates, signaling a democracy under threat,” the Communique notes. It urges G7 leaders to reject these regressive agendas and defend the fundamental rights of women, girls, and LGBTQIA+ people everywhere.
A Call to Action
Every ten minutes, a woman or girl is killed by an intimate partner or family member. “We can no longer afford incrementalism,” the Communique concludes. “Justice for women is justice for all. G7 leaders must act now.”
The Communique is available on the W7’s website (women7.org) and has been endorsed by more than 100 organizations – from Canada and around the world – to date.
For more information and to support the W7’s advocacy, follow @Women7 on Instagram.
About the W7
The W7 is an official G7 engagement group focused on gender justice and women’s rights. The W7 brings together feminist activists from across Canada, G7 nations, and the Global South to ensure that gender justice remains a central priority throughout all meetings and theme discussions. The newly launched website will serve as a hub for publications, statements, and advocacy efforts leading up to and during the G7 gathering in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada from June 13-15.
Our organizing committee has representatives from: Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, Canadian Labour Congress, Canadian Women’s Foundation, Equality Fund, Equitas, Mines Action Canada, National Association of Friendship Centres, Nobel Women’s Initiative, Oxfam Canada, Women’s Shelters Canada, and a Senior Fellow – Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative.
We are grateful for the financial support from Women and Gender Equality Canada and Global Affairs Canada.