Humanitarian Pre-Conference: Building a Feminist Approach to Humanitarian Aid

During this invite-only event, women-focused civil society organizations from humanitarian settings will directly engage with international organizations and donors to discuss what a feminist humanitarian system must look like. Through panel discussions and small group conversations, they will work together to determine the policies, programs, and investments needed to power progress for girls and women in emergencies.

Youth Pre-Conference: Speaking Truth to Power

Young people are changing the world today, creating the reality of tomorrow. Speaking up, challenging norms, collaborating, and building networks — young advocates are driving positive change in their communities, countries, and around the world. They deserve to be taken seriously with youth-forward programming customized for their needs and interests.

Touching on issues that young people themselves have identified as crucial to their work — intersectionality, diversity, and social inclusion; meaningful youth engagement; sustaining youth-led movements; achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and more — the Youth Pre-Conference at the Women Deliver 2019 Conference will support up to 1,000 young people to gain knowledge, hone skills, build networks, and ultimately generate momentum for gender equality on a larger scale – at the Women Deliver 2019 Conference and beyond.

Register today!

Doors open at 7am

Generation Now: Our Health, Our Rights Pre-Conference

An intergenerational convening to drive integrated action on HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights – with a focus on young people.

During the International AIDS Conference in 2018, Women Deliver joined the International AIDS Society to convene the youth-led and youth-forward Generation Now: Our Health, Our Rights preconference event. The focus was on increasing understanding of and advocating for integrated HIV and SRHR policies to shape systems and services that meeting those in need, including adolescent girls and young women, a key part of achieving #healthforall. Since then, we’ve also kicked off the Generation Now small grants program to provide young people the opportunity to build on the latest global discussions at AIDS 2018 and the Generation Now pre-conference on integrating youth-friendly SRHR and HIV health services and ensuring access to education and information for adolescents’ and young women, while integrating their own local experiences.

It’s time to build on that great success and turn our attention to the next iteration of Generation Now which will take place at the Women Deliver 2019 Conference. Join us for a Pre-conference meeting at Women Deliver 2019 that’s intersectional, innovative and intergenerational and identifies the products, platforms and policies to break silos and drive action for adolescents and young women.

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Private Sector Pre-Conference: How Business Can Build a “Future of Work” that Works for Women

New and profound disruptions,  including the rise of automation and the flourishing of artificial intelligence, hold significant implications for women in the workplace. These dynamics stand to transform global labor markets, and it remains to be seen whether they will help or hinder progress toward workforce gender parity. This pre-conference will gather high level corporate decision-makers to explore the impact of the “Future of Work” and the specific actions the private sector can take to minimize the risks to women’s employment and maximize the opportunity for women to succeed and thrive.

Nutsamaht: We are One. Our Voices. Our Stories. Indigenous Women’s Pre-Conference

Nutsamaht: We are One. Our Voices. Our Stories. Indigenous Women’s Pre-Conference to Women Deliver 2019 will inspire and inform and provide you with the information, confidence and connections to advance the rights and wellness of Indigenous women and girls in your community and around the world.The conference is being hosted on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, Squamish Nations people.

Global Midwifery Symposium

Keeping with a long tradition of maternal health advocacy at Women Deliver Conferences, we are pleased to include a Global Midwifery Symposium for the fourth time. Co-hosted by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), the World Health Organization in collaboration with other United Nations, civil society, and private sector partners, the symposium will be cross-cutting and innovative. The symposium will host a range of experts, specialists, and policymakers who will discuss the enabling environment and supportive professional collaboration that is needed for the effective functioning and delivery of a women-centered, midwife-led model of care – one that follows normal physiologic labor and childbirth with no unnecessary or excessive interventions.

The Women's Health Research Symposium

This event is being hosted by the Women’s Health Research Institute, one of only a few research institutes worldwide to focus exclusively on women’s health. The theme of this year’s symposium will center on women’s global health in order to maximize synergies with the Women Deliver 2019 Conference that is taking place in Vancouver. This event will be an opportunity to spotlight the work of leading provincial researchers in British Columbia, Canada and international experts, who will be asked to speak on a range of topics, including the impacts of respectful care, sexual and reproductive rights for women and girls, and digital health interventions for women.

Shifting the Power: A Vital Conversation About Equality and Redefining Philanthropy

Philanthropists from around the world will explore what it truly means to ‘shift the power.’ This session aims to meet philanthropists where they are on their own journey of learning and to inspire action to enhance gender equality globally and locally. Attendees will participate in intimate conversations guided by prominent feminists that will explore practical next steps, and prepare them to maximize the Women Deliver experience.

Uniting Forces to Ensure Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) is a Practice of the Past

This End FGM/C Pre-Conference is an unprecedented event from civil society for civil society to unite voices and come together around a global Call to Action to end FGM/C and support FGM/C survivors. The event will convene civil society organizations, champions, survivors and other grassroots representatives from across the globe to come together as a sector, to get to know others working globally across this issue, and to discuss what is needed to accelerate ending FGM/C by 2030. The event will put grassroots and survivor voices at the centre and work to strengthen our unified community of practice to support the achievement of SDG 5.3.

Informal Session on Donor Policies and Strategies (GENDERNET)

Informal session on donors policies and strategies on gender equality, of the members of the OECD DAC Network on Gender Equality (GENDERNET).