Mines Action Canada is pleased to join the W7 Organizing Committee for Canada's 2025 Presidency of the G7. The W7 or Women’s 7 is one of many ‘engagement groups’ that provides recommendations to G7 countries and holds governments accountable for commitments made. The W7 focuses on advancing women’s rights and gender equality as both a standalone priority and a set of issues that requires attention and robust action in each ministerial meeting and theme
discussion. Each year, the W7 is organized by civil society organizations from the host G7 country and MAC is pleased to be one of those organizations this year. Being part of the W7 will allow us to press G7 countries and governments to take concrete action on reducing harm to civilians during and after conflict and to reaffirm their commitment to the humanitarian disarmament treaties. 

In one of MAC's first official duties as part of the W7 Organizing Committee, our Executive Director travelled from Geneva to the Canadian Embassy in Rome for an official handover event from the Italian W7.

You can read Erin's remarks on behalf of the Committee here and below. Stay tuned for more on the W7 this year. 

W7 Handover Remarks

Thank you so much for the invitation to join you here today and to represent Canada's W7 Organizing Committee. I especially appreciate getting to come down here from Geneva where I've been in meetings all week. As you can see from my face even with a make-up miracle by the team at Sephora in Geneva, I had a bit of an incident with Geneva's uneven sidewalks and a concrete wall. So just to be clear - despite Canadian stereotypes, this is not an ice hockey injury but what happens when you try to take a picture of the sunset without watching your step.

It is an honour to hear more about your experiences last year and to learn from your successes.

You set an ambitious work plan for the 2024 W7 with a wide variety of activities. I am particularly impressed by what I’ve heard today.

The Canadian W7 Organizing Committee will strive for similar levels of success in 2025 despite the challenging environment.

Before sharing more about our plans, I should probably start with my history and our history as the Canadian W7.

I am a child of the 90s which means I grew up on girl power - and I don’t just mean the Spice Girls - on leadership classes, on Take Your Daughter to Work days and on consistent messages that women can have it all, my potential is unlimited and hard work will overcome all barriers. Then I entered the workforce full-time and had a bit of a rude awakening. The structures and attitudes I encountered had not always gotten the same messages I had and it can still be a struggle to get a seat at the decision-making table because I do not look like people’s ideas of an expert on disarmament. Part of the reason I joined the W7 Organizing Committee this year is to help shape those structures and attitudes so the next generation, especially the young women I work with, does not have the same rude awakening.

When it comes to the W7 itself, Canadian organizations set a new direction in 2018 with an explicitly feminist W7, that focused on feminist issues, such as sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender-based violence and unpaid and paid care. For the first time Global South feminist activists were active participants. Since then, W7 hosts in other countries have built on this experience while developing their own goals, ways of working, and priorities. It was so fascinating to hear about your approach over the past year.

Some of the organizers of the 2018 W7, as well as new organizations, have come together led by two fantastic co-chairs to plan the 2025 W7 in Canada with financial support of Women and Gender Equality Canada. 

Now, we are a diverse group of 10 feminist civil society organizations from across the country and spanning a variety of expertise. My organization, Mines Action Canada, works in humanitarian disarmament while Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights focuses on reproductive rights in Canada and around the world. The Canadian Labour Congress brings a labour perspective and advocates for working people especially working women. Equality Fund provides innovative finance to human rights defenders and feminist movements internationally. Canadian Women’s Foundation and Women’s Shelters Canada are working on gender equality, women’s rights and an end to gender based violence. Equitas is an international centre for human rights education. Nobel Women’s Initiative supports peace, justice and equality globally. Oxfam-Canada is working to end inequality, injustice and poverty around the world. And finally we have a Senior Fellow - Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative who brings a women, peace and security perspective.

We have come together with a shared commitment to gender equality and a feminist approach to the work of the G7. We have three key objectives:

• Host the 2025 W7 during Canada’s G7 presidency involving feminist activists from across Canada, G7 countries, and the Global South.
• Engage G7 actors bringing feminist proposals in terms of analysis, language, and initiatives to the discussions of Canada’s G7 priorities.
• Influence outcome documents and commitments where possible.

After an analysis of past W7s, other engagement groups, and G7 trends, we are approaching the W7 in a different way than previous years. In part because we know this year’s G7 is going to feel different than past ones. There are many challenges from a push back on gender equality and a lack of action on climate to increased militarization and economic protectionism. We have had some good language on gender equality in the past but little follow up. Ideally we would like the G7 to make stronger, more inclusive, concrete commitments to gender equality across all areas of attention - and resource them.

With all that in mind, we are undertaking 8 key activities this year.

First, we have commissioned 5 background papers to provide analysis and support for the development of recommendations. The papers look past G7 documentation and gender analysis regarding:

• Climate
• Economic resilience
• Emerging technologies
• Care (sponsored by Gender and Development Network in the UK)

The papers are being finalized now.

Second, we are developing a W7 communique.  We’ve compiled recommendations from previous communique and asked activists from the Majority World to provide a peer review thanks to the support of Gender and Development Network in the UK. We hope to have the communique available for sign on starting late February.

Third, we have formed 5 thematic working groups who will meet online to provide inputs into recommendations and ‘policy briefs.’ After a public call for participation, the working group members have been confirmed by the co-chairs. Many working group members were 2024 W7 Advisors which is very helpful for continuity. The working groups are:

• Climate
• Economy
• Emerging Technologies
• Democracy
• Gender Equality

We will look for opportunities for the Working Group Chairs to engage with G7 officials.

Fourth, we will be developing a series of policy briefs on key issues that review past G7 language/commitments, identify gaps, and make concrete recommendations for this year’s leaders. We are looking forward to incorporating the input of the working groups into these briefs.

Fifth, we will be working - to the extent possible - with the Gender Equality Advisory Committee (or GEAC), coordinating analysis and recommendations. The Organizing Committee will hold a joint session with the GEAC during their in-person meeting mid-March.

Sixth we will prepare a response to the Leaders’ Communique and provide other analysis as needed.

Seventh, we will liaise with the other “engagement groups” to both learn and advance shared priorities.

Finally, we will do public outreach to advance the policy dialogue around key feminist priorities. We have plans for public facing documents and communication channels including a website which will be launched later this month. One of our goals with the website is to build a site that future W7s will be able to use as well, saving us all from starting over each year.

Now, we are very aware that Canada has taken over the G7 presidency in one of the most challenging times. Just this week, the United States President Trump has launched a trade war on Canada (along with Mexico and China). Such a hostile action against a close ally and fellow member of the G7 is unprecedented and will have a severe impact on the Group this year.

Furthermore, the rules-based international order is under threat on multiple fronts with our previous progress on gender equality and inclusion being openly challenged. Banned weapons are being used. Conflicts rage in many parts of the world from Sudan and Myanmar to Ukraine and the Middle East, too many civilians are dying. Women and girls continue to face violence and harassment in their homes, on the streets and in digital spaces. Globally there seems to be a shift towards making policy based on fear and distrust rather than a positive vision of the future.

With all those challenges, it may be tempting to deprioritize gender equality and abandon feminist principles. As the 2025 Organizing Committee, we believe that the work of the W7 is more important than ever. Our feminist principles of equality, inclusion, care, solidarity and joy offer a more hopeful vision of the future - an alternative to a future of narrow self-interest and isolation. As influential actors sow economic chaos, challenge our institutions and norms, cultivate fear and anger, amplify differences and try to divide us, the most powerful thing we can do is to respond with inclusion, collective care and yes even a little joy or humour. One of my favorite parts of our work as the W7 organizing committee so has been how fun it is to get to know and work with all these brilliant women.

As I mentioned earlier, I frequently engage with young people, mostly young women, from around the world who are engaged in the peace, security and disarmament sector. Much of Mines Action Canada’s work focuses on training youth leaders in how to share their grassroots experiences and knowledge at the international policy making level so I see how hard the next generation is working to build a safer, more peaceful, inclusive and prosperous future for us all. I am part of the W7 Organizing Committee to create structures and shape attitudes so they do not have the same rude awakening I did.

From Sarith in Cambodia working with children with disabilities, to Christine supporting landmine survivors like her mother in Senegal. From Roza in Azerbaijan and Nimaya in Sri Lanka advocating for international humanitarian law in their countries, to Anna and Magritte supporting disarmament in the US. From Noor in Iraq, Maria in Lebanon, and Kauna and Zainab in Nigeria teaching their communities to stay safe living with landmines, to Katherine in Colombia and Kendahl in Denmark supporting demining programs. Young women are already making change in the world.

It is our responsibility as members of the W7 to make the world a little easier for them and to remind the G7 of their obligations to support these young change-makers and the millions of other young women like them around the world. 

Thank you. Merci. Grazie.