United Nations – 194 –
Gender Equality: Aggressive backlash against it – UN Chief | United Nations
Summary
551seconds video
The speaker expresses gratitude to key representatives and highlights their leadership in promoting gender equality at the United Nations. The text emphasizes the importance of partnerships and continued efforts to achieve gender parity, especially in light of upcoming milestones in 2025, such as the 25th anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution on Women, Peace and Security, and the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration. While celebrating progress, the speaker points out the ongoing challenges, including political representation, climate crises, and the exclusion of women from peace talks. The need to protect women’s rights, renew commitments to international frameworks, and invest in gender equality is stressed. The speaker also notes significant progress within the UN system, with many entities achieving gender parity, but acknowledges ongoing challenges, such as lack of diversity in leadership roles, especially in peacekeeping operations. The UN’s commitment to evolving its culture and structure to ensure gender parity and equality is highlighted. Finally, the speaker calls for collective action and leadership to achieve gender equality, describing it as a necessary path to a just, peaceful, and sustainable future.
Full Script
Excellencies dear friends, I am very pleased to join you today. And with the permission of the distinguished ministers of social development of Qatar and the education of Rwanda, I want to express my deep gratitude to Excellency Sheikh Alia Ahmed bin Saif Al-Tani, permanent representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations, and Excellency Ernest Rouhan Moussou, permanent representative of Rwanda to the United Nations, for what has been their remarkable leadership and their continued support and commitment to gender equality at the United Nations and beyond. The group of friends has been a driving force in our journey towards gender parity. I look forward to our continued and strengthened partnership during this pivotal year to celebrate hard-won achievements, confront persistent and emerging challenges, and most importantly, accelerate action to achieve gender equality. Excellencies, 2025 is meant to be a year of celebration. 25 years since the adoption of the UN Security Council Resolution, 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, and 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the Force World Conference on Women, milestones which ignited global action. But the truth is, 2025 is also a year of reckoning. Five years from 2030, we are far from delivering on the promises of the Sustainable Development Goals, including Gold V, achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. The environmental and climate crises are disproportionately affecting them. And women across the globe continue to endure the worst impacts of war while being excluded for most of the peace talks. Political representation is also stagnating. In 2024, a record number of elections worldwide, only five women were elected as heads of state. In other words, we are witnessing an aggressive backlash against gender equality, threatening hard-won progress on women’s human rights and fundamental freedoms. And we cannot afford to stand still. We must push back against this pushback. We must secure women’s full, equal and meaningful participation in all decision-making processes, including on peace and security and humanitarian action. We must protect, support and amplify the voices of civil society and grassroots organizations who are on the front lines of defending women’s rights worldwide. We must renew our commitment to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Beijing Plus 30 framework, and I call on everyone to accelerate its full and effective implementation. Last September, member states have adopted the Pact for the Future, and the Pact reaffirms that gender equality holds the key to unlock progress on the 2030 agenda and sustainable development. It calls for greater investment in the SDGs, expanding depth-riff measures and stressing support from multilateral development banks, so that governments can invest in the programs that people need, including education, training, job creation and social protections that foster gender equality. And the Global Digital Compact calls for closing the gender-digital divide, ensuring women and girls everywhere can access and benefit from the opportunities of a rapidly evolving global economy. Gender equality is a threat that runs through the Pact. And I call on all member states to support no effort, to spare no effort, to implement its commitments. This includes the revitalization of the Commission on the Status of Women to promote the full and effective implementation of the Platform for Action. Excellencies, as we took to the challenges all around us, we must also look, as we look to the challenges all around us, we must also look inside our organization. With four years left to reach my goal of a 50-50 balance across the UN system by 2028, I am proud of how far we have come. With the support of so many of you today, we have seen historic breakthroughs since I launched the System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity. In 2017, only five United Nations entities had reached parity. Today that number is 28, a testament to our collective institutional efforts. We are seeing an unprecedented number of women serving in the UN system. We have achieved, and more importantly, maintained gender parity among senior leadership and present coordinators since 2020. And for the first time in the UN’s history, we have now reached parity in international professional categories. Excellencies and friends, despite the significant strides, progress remains uneven with critical obstacles along the way. We still see concerning gaps at the P5 and UN levels. This threatens to undermine our future pipeline of senior leaders. Progress has also been slow in non-ed headquarters and field locations. While we have sustained gender parity among present coordinators, women make up only 14 percent of the present coordinators at the assistant secretary general level. And in a majority of peacekeeping operations, the share of women does not exceed 35 percent. Women must nurture and promote talent everywhere and at every level. But achieving gender parity is not about numbers alone. Representation without transformation is not enough. Lack of parity perpetuates power structures that go against gender equality. Too many institutions, including our own, remain shaped by patriarchal systems of power that restrict women’s equal access to leadership, economic opportunities and legal protections. If we want a UN that truly represents the people it serves, our organizational culture, policies and decision-making must continue to evolve. The UN is committed to leading by example, ensuring a workplace built on the principles of dignity, equality and respect. The field-specific, enabling environmental guidelines, the UN Systemwide Knowledge Hub on addressing sexual harassment and the UN Systemwide Dashboard on gender parity are helping us steer organizational change. And more than 650 UN gender focal points across the entire UN system are working alongside leadership to these mental barriers and build truly inclusive and supportive workplaces. But we must do more. That is why I launched the UN Systemwide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan, establishing a robust governance that ensures coordination across 43 UN entities and integrating reporting into existing accountability framework to raise the bar for gender mainstreaming. A more gender-equal UN will be a more effective UN. When that serves all women and girls, champions political commitment, mobilizes investments, strengthens partnerships and ensures real accountability. And when that reflects the more equal world we want to shape. Excellencies, dear friends, gender equality is more than an aspiration. It’s a human right and the fundamental requirement for breaking cycles of poverty, violence and inequality. Breaking gender equality paves the way for a more just, peaceful and sustainable future for all. The road will require bold leadership and collective action to break barriers, to safeguard women’s rights and freedoms, and to drive trust and lasting transformation. In this context, gender parity is non-negotiable. We must serve and deliver for all women and girls, so let us pursue our collective efforts, turn commitments into ambitious results and push forward together. And I thank you.
United Nations