Sweden – Feminist Foreign Policy

Feminist Foreign Policy Sweden Handbook

In October 2014, Sweden became the first country in the world to launch a feminist foreign policy. This means applying a systematic gender equality perspective throughout the whole foreign policy agenda.

The feminist foreign policy begins and ends with reality. The policy shall be based on facts and statistics about girls’ and women’s everyday lives, and shall produce results in people’s lives. Otherwise, it loses its relevance.

One important starting point for our work is that gender equality is not a separate women’s issue – it benefits everyone. Research shows that gender equal societies enjoy better health, stronger economic growth and higher security. It also shows that gender equality contributes to peace, and that peace negotiations in which women have taken part have a better chance of being sustainable.

Handbook Sweden’s feminist foreign policy

Aug 23, 2018 – This handbook should be a resource for international work relating to gender equality and all women’s and girls’ full enjoyment of human rights. It contains a selection of methods and experiences that can provide examples and inspira¬tion for further work of the Swedish Foreign Service, other parts of the civil service and society as a whole. The handbook also describes the first four years of working with a feminist foreign policy. Thereby, it responds to the considerable national and international interest in this policy.
> government.se/reports/2018/08/handbook-swedens-feminist-foreign-policy/

The three Rs

The work with the feminist foreign policy is structured according to three Rs: Rights, Representation and Resources. This is the basis for the analysis of the conditions where we work. What do the statistics say about the differences between women and men, girls and boys? Do they have the same rights – to education, work, marriage, divorce and inheritance?
Are women represented where decisions that affect them are made – in parliaments, on boards and in legal systems?
Is gender equality taken into consideration when resources are allocated – in central government budgets or development projects?

Margot Wallstrom’s feminist foreign policy and Nordic Model / Equality Model

Wallstrom resigned as foreign minister Sweden in September 2019. She wants to stay engaged in a debate growing more acrimonious among feminists globally about a widening, well-funded campaign to repeal laws everywhere against prostitution for both buyers and sellers of sex. The decriminalization campaign has drawn critics among many feminists who work among the poorest and most vulnerable girls and women, not only in developing countries but also in Western Europe, who are trafficked into the sex industry.
> more

A Feminist Government

Sweden has the first feminist government in the world. This means that gender equality is central to the Government’s priorities – in decision-making and resource allocation. A feminist government ensures that a gender equality perspective is brought into policy-making on a broad front, both nationally and internationally.
> government.se/a-feminist-government

The Government’s Statement of Foreign Policy 2019

Feb 13, 2019 – On 13 February, Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström presented the 2019 Statement of Foreign Policy in the Riksdag.
> government.se/speeches/20192/02/the-governments-statement-of-foreign-policy-2019/

What about Sweden’s feminist foreign policy?
– Voices from around the world

A report from Olof Palme International Center
By Anna-Karin Johansson
What has the feminist foreign policy meant? Is it anything that we can learn from and is it room for improvement? We asked a few people for their views.
> palmecenter.se/Swe_FemForeign_Policy.pdf