Humanitarian diplomacy is under growing pressure as conflicts become more fragmented, access negotiations more politicised, and humanitarian space continues to shrink. Yet women and women-led organisations—who are already leading frontline protection, mediation, and community resilience—remain largely excluded from formal diplomatic and humanitarian decision-making. Centering women’s leadership is therefore not only a gender imperative, but a strategic necessity for the Humanitarian Reset, which calls for rebalancing power, elevating local actors, and aligning humanitarian engagement with today’s political realities.

This session explores how a gendered, inclusive, community-rooted, and politically informed approach to humanitarian diplomacy can strengthen protection outcomes for women and girls. Women are already practicing humanitarian diplomacy and negotiations every day in their communities; the system must recognize, support, and build on their efforts. Women leaders from crisis-affected contexts and female practitioners will share practical experiences of navigating diplomacy, access, and protection risks, while also examine system-level barriers and opportunities for change. By reframing diplomacy as an inherently political space where inclusion and protection must be meaningfully negotiated, the session advances the Reset’s ambition to create a more accountable, context-driven, and transformative humanitarian system. Participants will leave with concrete ideas and recommendations for integrating women’s leadership into humanitarian diplomacy and broader system reform.

Aim of the session
To explore how gendered, inclusive, community-rooted, and politically informed humanitarian diplomacy can strengthen protection outcomes for women and girls in conflict and crisis settings, and to identify practical actions that humanitarian actors, donors, diplomats, and local organisations can adopt to center women’s leadership within humanitarian diplomacy ecosystems.

Objectives

The session aims to:
• Reframe humanitarian diplomacy as a multi-level, inherently political practice that extends beyond international negotiations to include community-rooted, locally led diplomatic action.
• Center the voices and priorities of local women leaders, recognizing them as diplomatic actors shaping protection outcomes on the ground and highlighting successful practices tested on the ground.
• Advance a gender-transformative understanding of diplomacy, focused on shifting power, space, and resources to women and marginalized groups rather than relying on representation alone.
• Influence global humanitarian platforms and Member State engagement to meaningfully include local women’s leadership in diplomatic, policy, and reform processes.
• Generate concrete ideas and recommendations from participants to integrate women-led humanitarian diplomacy into policy, funding, and system reform agendas.