The second annual Global Citizen Festival, held on Saturday, September 28th in Central Park, featured Stevie Wonder, Kings of Leon, Alicia Keys and John Mayer. The Festival called for the end to extreme poverty by 2030, and highlighted women’s equality as a core priority for development.

55,000 Global Citizens called on world leaders to place the equality of women and girls at the forefront of the 2015 development agenda. Thanks to your commitments, the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban-Ki Moon and other Ambassadors were given the mandate on stage to pledge their support for accelerated progress on achieving equality for women and girls everywhere.

Let’s make sure that world leaders follow through with their on-stage commitments.  Sign the petition to call on the UN and governments worldwide to put equality for girls and women at the core of the 2015 development agenda. Empowering women and girls around the world brings vast economic benefits, it is one of the most effective ways to fight extreme poverty and build healthier, wealthier and more educated communities.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who received the Global Citizen Award for Women’s Equality said: “We must empower the next generation of women to make their contribution to advancing society. Please join me in calling on the United Nations and all governments to place girls and women at the heart of the post-2015 agenda.”

Global Citizen’s It Takes Two’s campaign aims to build public support for family planning on a global scale for the 222 million women who have an unmet need for modern contraceptives. Before the Festival, Global Citizens took 50,000 actions that called on leading condom companies to commit 2% of their annual profits to international family planning initiatives -- and your call to action was heard loud and clear. As a result, It Takes Two now has a meeting with Trojan to discuss how they can play their part in furthering international family planning efforts.

Jud Ireland, the CEO of Naked Condoms pledged 20% of the company’s profits to enable 120 million more women to have access to contraception by 2020. Representatives from ONE Condoms, L Condoms, Female Health Company, and WomanCare Global also committed on stage to family planning initiatives around the world.

You can still take action and show your support for women and girls around the world to have access to contraceptive services and information by signing theIt Takes Two Pledge or the Women’s Equality Petition.

Your support will be heard by essential players responsible for drafting the post-2015 development agenda. Policy leaders will convene at the New York UN Headquarters on 3-4 February 2014, where we will hand over both petitions to make sure that sexual and reproductive health, reproductive rights, and achieving real equality for girls and women are core development priorities. Realizing universal access to family planning services is critical to achieve sustainable development. Sign the petition to make sure this becomes a key priority!