In 2026, I commit to strengthening institutional and conceptual links between the work of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on the Rights of Older Persons, the Human Rights Council, and the International Gender Champions Network, with the aim of ensuring that gender equality, inclusion, and intersectionality remain central to emerging global norms on ageing. I will actively share key developments and gender-related issues emerging from the IGWG process within the International Gender Champions Network, through briefings, informal exchanges, or written reflections. And I will encourage at least one discussion or exchange that highlights ageing and older women’s rights as a gender equality issue across the life course.

As Chair of the NGO Committee on Ageing and the International Federation on Ageing’s representative to the United Nations, I commit to mainstream gender equality, especially the rights and lived realities of older women, across both the substantive work and working methods of the IGWG. I will ensure these issues are explicitly addressed in at least two IGWG-linked civil society briefings or preparatory meetings, including the February 2026 preparatory meeting in Geneva. I will promote gender-responsive language and concepts (life-course approach, intersectionality, cumulative discrimination) in NGO written inputs and oral interventions to the IGWG, and encourage the meaningful participation of women-led and older women’s organisations in IGWG consultations and side events, tracking participation qualitatively.