Women’s voices at UN General Assembly few, but growing

With cascading crises casting a pall over the proceedings at this year’s United Nations General Assembly, Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová had this reminder on the first day of debate: “We cannot save our planet if we leave out the vulnerable: the women, the girls, the minorities.”

But gender parity at the world’s preeminent forum of leaders still seems far out of sight. Eight women were set to speak at the UN General Assembly on Friday. Just five women spoke across the first three days of the summit.

On Friday, three vice presidents and five prime ministers – including Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina and New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden – took the rostrum or gave their address in a prerecorded video.

“As the first female president in the history of my country, the burden of expectation to deliver gender equality is heavier on my shoulder,” said Samia Suluhu Hassan, the president of Tanzania. When it comes to such equality, she said, “COVID-19 is threatening to roll back the gains that we have made.”

Hassan was the lone woman to address the General Assembly on Thursday.

Despite those 13 women making up less than 10 per cent of speakers over the first four days, the 13 represent an increase from last year, when just nine women spoke over the course of the session. There are also three more female heads of state or heads of government – 24 – than there were at this point in 2020.

“There can be no democracy, no security, and no development without one-half of the humankind,” Estonia President Kersti Kaljulaid said on Wednesday, also underscoring women’s vulnerability in society.

The theme of vulnerability has been at the forefront during a week haunted by the ever-looming specters of climate change, coronavirus, and conflict. Most of the speeches have taken on the tenor of pleas issued at the precipice, batting away the summit’s theme of “building resiliency through hope”.

GLOBAL WARMING MAKING THE WORLD LESS SAFE

Dire predictions were not limited to the General Assembly. At a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday, the high-level officials urged stepped-up action to address the security implications of climate change and make global warming a key part of all UN peacekeeping operations. They said warming is making the world less safe, pointing to Africa’s conflict-plagued Sahel region and Syria and Iraq.

Scores of leaders have already spoken, and many have left New York altogether. But some of the most anticipated countries have yet to deliver their addresses to fellow leaders.

North Korea, Myanmar, and Afghanistan – all perennially but also lately much in the news – are expected to close out the final debate session on Monday afternoon. It remains unclear who will represent Afghanistan, where the US-backed government fell last month after American forces withdrew and a resurgent Taliban reclaimed power.

Friday alone promised fireworks, with a slate of speakers from countries roiled by internal and external conflict.

The president of ethnically divided Cyprus opened the proceedings on Friday, followed by Lebanon, which is also riven by internal strife.

“Taking stock of our declarations and decisions over time, I must confess that I feel – like many of you – a deep sense of disappointment,” said Nicos Anastasiades, Cyprus’ president. “A sense of disappointment because I witness a widening gap between words and deeds, between the auspicious declarations and commitments which are made and the results of the measures that we promise to deliver.”

The morning plenary was also to see addresses from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the prime minister of Armenia, lambasted Thursday in Azerbaijan’s speech in the aftermath of the Nagorno-Karabakh war. The afternoon saw both Albania and Serbia, perpetually at odds over Kosovo, as well as a Pakistan that is feeling pressure on its eastern border with India and its western border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan and India, which speaks on Saturday, are historically eager users of the “right of reply” function, which allows diplomats to lob polemics defending their countries in response to speeches from unfriendly nations.

– AP