The largest global conference on gender equality is underway in Narrm (Melbourne) where thousands of indigenous women are gathering against a backdrop of a world in crisis.
Climate change has been described as the planet’s greatest existential threat, and Pacific women, including rural and coastal Māori, are on the frontlines.
This is the first year Women Deliver has been hosted in the Pacific, and Te Ao Māori News spoke to Pacific leaders who fought to bring the conference to the region.
Noelene Nabulivou of DIVA for Equality in Fiji and chair of the regional steering committee said bringing it to the Pacific was a collective effort.
“It’s not just about climate change, it’s about economic justice, sexual and reproductive health and rights,” she said.
“We have some of the highest rates of violence against women and girls, and some of the lowest levels of women in national legislatures.”
Former MP Louisa Wall (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Waikato, and Ngāti Hineuru) served as Oceanic Pacific Mobilisation Advisor. She described her role as supporting the work the Pacific region has undertaken to ensure its voices are heard.
Nabulivou and Wall were among the drivers who pushed to get the first formation of a First Nations governance group within the Women Deliver’s structure.
Right now, women and girls bear the brunt, in sexual violence used as a weapon of war, and the erosion of reproductive and bodily autonomy in liberal democracies such as the United States.
Mereana Hond (Taranaki, Te Atiawa, and Te Whānau a Apanui) in her speech as emcee at the opening ceremony emphasised the significance of these times.
“With around 60 global conflicts, a catastrophic climate crisis, and a well-resourced and coordinated backlash against women’s rights, health and bodies,” she said.
“We are the circuit breakers. Change calls us here. We are here to draw on our collective wisdom and to lead the structural change required to overturn systems that weren’t created by us and don’t work for us.”
A key outcome of the conference will be the Melbourne Declaration for Gender Equality, set to be launched at the closing ceremony on Thursday.
Co-created through global consultation, the Declaration calls for a reset, rebalancing power, strengthening accountability, and shifting resources toward feminist movements and locally led change.
It builds on a lineage of global frameworks, including the Cairo Programme of Action and the Beijing Declaration, which set bold agendas but whose impact has often depended on political will and follow-through.
Along with the declaration is a First Nations statement, which will be delivered at the closing ceremony by Nabulivou and Prue Kapua, on behalf of more than 350 Indigenous women, girls, and gender diverse people.
“The First Nations statement complements the Melbourne Declaration, but from our perspective, it will hold Women Deliver accountable,” Wall explained.
“This isn’t a one-off Indigenous assertion of our right to be in these global forums. This should be a legacy for all Women Deliver conferences moving forward.”
The statement asserts that Indigenous peoples are sovereign Nations, not stakeholders, with governance systems that predate modern states.
It positions colonisation as an ongoing structure driving violence, dispossession, and systemic exclusion, and names the failure of governments to protect Indigenous women and children.
The statement calls for structural transformation, including the return of land and decision-making authority, an end to extractive development without consent, and full recognition of Indigenous law, governance, and knowledge systems.
It demands Indigenous women-led solutions across justice, healing, climate response, economic systems, and health.
“Indigenous women are not asking to be included in systems that have harmed them. They are transforming them.” the statement reads.
As the Pacific hosts the world, the expectation is not just visibility but a shift in power, accountability, and who defines the future.
“We are here,” Nabulivou cheered, “because we are ready.”
Te Aniwaniwa Paterson reported from Narrm, Australia, on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation, as a media scholar supported by Women Deliver 2026.
