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Gender imbalance at the General Debate causes stir

Women were less than ten per cent of the speakers at the General Debate of the 79th UN General Assembly.

Nineteen female speakers addressed the Assembly, including only five Heads of State and three Heads of Government. The remainder, 11 speakers, spoke as Foreign Ministers.

On the other hand, the General Assembly heard 175 male speakers, including 67 Heads of Government and 47 Heads of State, as well as Foreign Ministers and Heads of Delegations.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres drew attention to this gender imbalance in his opening speech in the General Debate and said it was “unacceptable.“

“I am sorry to observe that despite years of talk, gender inequality is on full display in this very Hall,” Guterres said.

“We took targeted measures to achieve gender parity among the United Nations senior leadership. It’s doable. I call on male-dominated political and economic establishments around the world to do it.”

Maria Malmer Stenergard, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-ninth session. UN Photo/Loey Felipe
Maria Malmer Stenergard, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-ninth session. UN Photo/Loey Felipe

Speakers call for improvement

This gender imbalance did not go unnoticed by other speakers.

“Women make up 50 per cent of the world’s population, yet less than ten per cent of speakers this week are women,” said Maria Malmer Stenergard, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden.  “There is a lot of room for improvement in this regard.”

Her colleague, Thórdís Reykfjörð Gylfadóttir, Foreign Minister of Iceland concurred. “I thought we had come further than this.”

In addition to the Member States, regional organisations or Observer States such as the European Union, the Vatican and the State of Palestine are represented in the General Debate.

So are the Secretary-General and the President of the General Assembly. No woman has ever assumed the Secretary-Generalship, and only four women have been elected to the Presidency of the General Assembly.

Pedro Sanchez, Prime Minister of Spain, has called for the election of women to the posts of UN Secretary-General and Assembly President and alternating gender representation for these top UN posts.

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