Few Women, Big Impact: “Latin American and Caribbean Female Leaders Stand Out at UN General Assembly”

Share this Article:

As global instability mounts, the stakes are high for the 79th Unit- ed Nations General Assembly week. While tensions in Europe
and the Middle East continue to dominate the diplomatic agenda and shake up the global order, all eyes will be on New York in September for leaders to set the diplo- matic agenda for the year to come. This year again, the (UNGA) high-level debate will be dominated by men speaking at the rostrum.

A provisional list of speakers published in mid-July revealed that less than 10 percent of the leaders set to speak at the high-level week are women, showing the hill remains steep for women in politics, especially at the highest level. There were only 27 countries where 28 women served as Heads of State and/or Government globally as of June, and at the current rate, gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years, according to UN Women. “This has been a super year of elections, and it was a
great opportunity for lots of big democra- cies to show their commitment to having women in leadership,” Carol Bellamy, a former politician and executive director of UNICEF between 1995-2005, told Envoy. “But if you look at the five biggest democ- racies that went to the polls this year, not one of them had a female candidate run- ning, Mexico is an exception.” Bellamy spoke to Envoy before U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and Kamala Harris became the expected Democratic nominee.

While, so far, only nine women prime ministers or presidents are set to travel to New York for the event, there is a bright side: the first woman to speak is scheduled to come earlier than usual. The provision- al list of speakers published in July indi- cates that the first woman to speak will be the fifth one to speak on the first day of the debate. Switzerland’s rotating presi- dent, Viola Amherd, will not only address the assembly for the first time as president but will also be the first woman to do so at the Assembly.

“Her presence demonstrates the impor- tance Switzerland grants to the United Nations and the relevance of effective multilateralism in today’s fragmented world,” Switzerland’s mission to the
U.N. told Envoy in an email, confirm- ing Amherd’s attendance.

Anita Bhatia, the founder of ImpactCom- mons and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women between 2019 and 2023, attended many high-level debates at the General Assembly and remembers think- ing at the time, “It would be men after men after men, a sea of men in black,” she said, “so it’s a mixed feeling of conflicting
happiness, frustration at the lack of wom- en and then optimism and hope when you get good results.”
The U.N. General Assembly offers an op- portunity to paint a picture of the state of women in politics and leadership in international organizations. While the number of women leaders in interna- tional organizations steadily increases, a report by GWLvoices, an advocacy group for multilateralism and gender equality revealed in February that only 13% of all elected leaders in international organiza- tions have been women since 1945. The number of women in national assemblies has also increased globally, but significant strides remain to achieve full gender pari- ty, according to UN Women.

“I don’t even think it’s a matter of com- petence or merit, because many of these women are very distinguished, accom- plished women in their own right,” Am- ina Mohamed, a former high-level U.N. official and a minister in Kenya between 2013-2022, told Envoy. “I think there’s just a slowness in embracing that really critical change that is required to make sure that there’s a much more balanced view of the world in multilateral organi- zations, but also in countries at the high- est political levels.”

However, not everything is gloomy for women in power. Since the last General Assembly, two countries elected for the first time a woman in the top job: Mexico and Dominica.
“In the case of Mexico, we have to wait un- til October 1 to be the president-elect to take the full powers in her country,” Maria Fernanda Espinosa, President of the 73rd General Assembly and minister of foreign affairs of Ecuador between 2017-2018, told Envoy. “But we will have a female Foreign Minister of Mexico take the stage at the U.N. so I think that the region is in- creasingly improving its gender balance.” In September, Mexico will still be led by lame-duck president Andres Manuel Lo-
pez Obrador and as such should be repre- sented by its foreign affairs minister, but the leader of Dominica, Sylvanie Burton is on the provisional list and as such could make her first appearance as leader of the Caribbean island. Dominica’s presidential office could not confirm President Bur- ton’s attendance.
On top of Burton and Barcena, Latin American women shine on the provi- sional list as the region sending the most women delegates overall. Peru’s president, Dina Boluarte, who took over from Pedro Castillo in 2022 after waves of protests ap- pears on the list, as well as Honduras’ pres- ident Xiomara Castro, a leftist.

“We are far from being where we need to be, and it’s more the exception,” Espinosa said. “It’s exceptional to have four or five heads of state and government in Latin America, but out of the 29 heads of state and government, it’s not bad in terms of
ratio, in terms of number of countries.”

About The Author

Share this Article:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *