U.N. : Gender Equality Starts at the Top

December 9, 2005 - (IPS) A leading international women's rights group has launched a campaign calling on the U.N. Security Council to consider a woman candidate for the post of the next secretary-general. With Kofi Annan's tenure as U.N. secretary-general ending next year, Equality Now drew up a list with the names of highly-qualified women leaders who should be considered for the position.

"The question is not whether or not women will do a 'better job' at the helm the of U.N., the question is why, since the founding of the U.N. 60 years ago, has a woman never been selected -- or at least publicly considered -- to serve as secretary-general, despite the fact that there are many qualified candidates and despite the promises made by governments to reach gender equality within the U.N.?" said Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of Equality Now.

Equality Now is an international organisation working for the promotion and protection of women's rights, including political representation and economic development.

The current list includes 18 current and former heads of state, foreign ministers and U.N. under-secretaries, including the current Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the former Chilean defence minister Michelle Bachelet Jeria, and the executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, Thoraya Obaid of Saudi Arabia.

Ten years ago, at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, 189 countries adopted a Platform for Action on gender equality. The Platform included a call for the development of "mechanisms to nominate women candidates for appointment to senior posts in the United Nations". But according to Equality Now, there is still no such mechanism, and "in fact no transparency in the process of elections to the highest post of secretary-general, making it impossible to know who is under consideration as a candidate and on what basis".

Officially, the secretary-general is appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council for a five-year term. By convention, the position rotates by geographic region, and it is generally considered to be Asia's turn to fill the post.

Equality Now named three Asian women -- Nafis Sadik of Pakistan, the former executive director of UNFPA; Auung San Suu Kyi of Burma, leader of the National League for Democracy Party; and former Senate President Leticia Shahani of the Philippines.

On the list is also Louise Arbour, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, who welcomed the campaign. "I think that women have a very important contribution to make to development and to peace and security. They have a voice that has a lot of resonance throughout the world on these issues, which are at the core of the United Nations," she said. Arbour is convinced that it will take another five to 10 years before the U.N. is ready for a female secretary-general. But when it happens, it will be a symbolic victory for gender rights everywhere, she says. "It would create in itself a change because it signals a more equal world," Arbour told IPS.

"The simple fact of having women at the top sends a signal to younger women that there is a place for them in positions of leadership and it reflects a world which is more just and more equal, where power is not hijacked by a
few."

Gender parity within the United Nations in general still has a long way to go. Although the Beijing Declaration called for the United Nations to "achieve overall gender equality, particularly at the professional level and above, by the year 2000", only 37..1 percent of its professional staff are women, according to U.N. statistics. And compared to last year, this actually represents a decrease of 0.3 per cent. Only 16.2 percent of the under-secretaries-general are women -- six out of 37.

"It is not enough for the U.N. to issue resolutions every year lamenting its lack of progress in achieving gender balance in the staffing of the Secretariat," Taina Bien-Aime told IPS. "As the premier international institution, it has failed in its leadership to secure 50-50 gender parity within its own ranks," she said. "Sending a message that women's equality is crucial to economic development, peace and security is important, but it is not enough if the U.N. itself does not take equal representation within its system seriously."

From: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31366