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News & Events
V Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policies, Madrid, 2026
VOCAL co-founders María Paulina Rivera Chávez, Katie Whipkey, and Rosebell Kagumire attended the 5th Feminist Foreign Policy Ministerial Conference in June 2026 in Madrid, Spain. Our purpose was to get VOCAL off the ground as a fledgling organization and establish our presence within the feminist foreign policy community. The conference gave us a chance to hear the latest developments in FFP directly from ministerial leaders and global stakeholders, while also using the space to share our mission and feminist and decolonial messaging with a wider audience of partners and decision-makers.
Civil Society Forum, Madrid, 2026
Ahead of the V Ministerial Conference on FFP, VOCAL hosted a panel entitled "Feminist Foreign Policy at a Crossroads: Rethinking Power, Knowledge, and Resourcing" during the Civil Society Forum in June 2026 in Madrid, Spain. The panel was convened by VOCAL and co-sponsored by The Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID), African Feminist Collective on Feminist Informed Policies (AfIP Collective), International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), and the Azadi Network.
4th Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policies, Paris, 2025
VOCAL co-founders María Paulina Rivera Chávez and Katie Whipkey attended the 4th Feminist Foreign Policy Ministerial Conference in October 2025 in Paris, France. Katie was invited to speak at the conference on a panel entitled: "From thoughts to action: research as the evidence-based pillar of feminist foreign policy." Our intention was to actively listen and better understand how VOCAL as an organization could contribute into the wider FFP ecosystem.
IPSA World Congress, Seoul, 2025
VOCAL was formed during the At the 28th International Political Science Association (IPSA) World Congress in July 2025 in Seoul, South Korea. We convened through the panel "Decolonising Feminist Foreign Policy; Rethinking Gender, Power and Global Hierarchies." Here is where VOCAL took root.