Come October, the United Nations will be celebrating the 16th anniversary of UNSC Resolution 1325, which reaffirms the important role that women can play in prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping and formulation of humanitarian response in post-conflict reconstruction.
At a time when the role of women in crisis management has undergone radical shift from being merely helpless victims of conflict to supervising policy planning and program development in conflict zone, it is indeed fitting that the international community is getting ready to hand over the mantle of UN’s leadership to a deserving lady. Very recently, seven women senators in the United States have formally urged President Barack Obama to put his best foot forward in ensuring that the UN elects its maiden Madam Secretary-General. And despite the US administration’s vague stand of “ultimately supporting the best candidate of either gender” the fact remains that America’s national action plan document does call for empowering “half the world’s population as equal partners in preventing conflict and building peace in countries threatened and affected by war, violence and insecurity.”
Though, it is an undeniable fact that representation of women in leadership position has been growing slowly but steadily across the globe, there has been a general aversion, although not overt, in allowing women to grace posts of influence. The truth is women are still struggling to find a strong footing in the political sphere all over the world. While globally the number of lady parliamentarians has increased significantly since 1995, merely 22 percent of seats in national parliaments are held by women as they continue to be abysmally under-represented in national ministries. As Indian President Pranab Mukherjee rightly observed, while addressing the national conference of women legislators recently, there cannot be true empowerment of women without giving them adequate representation in public office.
Now that the UN is busy confronting multitudinous challenges like growing extremism coupled with the worrying trend of rapid spread of rabid ideals in all segments of society, emergence of regional rivalries latent with the possibility of ushering a new Cold War, a chronic refugee crisis around the world and peacekeeping scandals of worst degree, the UN should try and achieve genuine gender equality in the global policy-making process.
The UN has been at the forefront of an international endeavor to advance the cause of women throughout the globe and should not miss this huge opportunity to go one step further and appoint a woman as the topmost executive, who will be required to play the combined role of a suave politician, a canny diplomat and a corporate chief executive with proven managerial-cum-negotiating skill. Let us not forget that notwithstanding the stated goal of achieving gender equality in its functioning, the UN has somehow missed the bus as only 25 percent of the top positions in the UN secretariat are occupied by women. Surely, breaking the last glass ceiling of international politics is the most right and effective thing to do under the present circumstances, as women can be the catalyst for instilling a sense of sanity in an increasingly volatile and violent world.
Even empirical data provided by the International Monetary Fund and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggests that higher levels of female participation in the wider workforce as well as government departments positively correlate with greater advances in human development. And in the world of politics too, as has been the case in business, introduction of skills and perspectives of women have brought marked improvement in the decision-making process, thus enhancing the overall capacity to achieve holistic growth. True, nobody can guarantee that women’s leadership will automatically translate into more gender-friendly outcomes in all cases. But just imagine the effect of a lady secretary-general taking the bull by the horn, to deal with the murky underbelly of peacekeeping, in public mind especially in the backdrop of ghastly revelations of UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic paying underage girls as little as 50 cents to engage in illegal sexual activities.
Besides, acute problems arising out of a global refugee crisis, with huge number of people desperately fleeing unbearable repression encouraged by state supported actors in the crisis ridden war zone of MENA region, the looming cloud of stateless totalitarianism sought to be enforced by terror organizations like Daesh, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram et al and entrenchment of extremist thinking in non-radicalized mind can be more effectively tackled because a woman can instill moderation as a value apart from introducing an alternative perspective and putting a human face in the decision making process of international organizations engaged in peace-enforcement and promoting interstate cooperation. No doubt, success can be achieved when women work in collaboration with male counterparts as multiplicity of viewpoints actually helps prevent an organization from turning staid and rigid.
The UN is no longer viewed as an effective policeman in a cacophonic world. Sincere attempts at sub-regional integration should catalyze the UN to shift its focus from mediating in political territorial disputes to addressing long-term challenges like climate change, sustainable development, civilian implications of conflict, which includes mass displacement and most importantly human rights. Moving beyond the criterion of regional rotation, let there be an open and fair competition to choose the best lady candidate for “the most impossible job in the world.” And there is no dearth of talented women to guide this shake up process in the most famous office at New York’s Turtle Bay.
