United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s recent appointment of an all-male High Level Advisory Board on Climate Change Financing angered gender equality activists around the world. The appointment came as a surprise, as the UN has shown some progress in appointing women to decision-making positions, and gender equality texts were integrated, for the fist time, into the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) documents.
The Climate Change Financing group will examine sources of revenue for developing countries to help manage the impacts of climate change. Women are among the most affected by climate change because of their role as primary providers of food, water, and fuel. The absence of women in the Advisory Board means women will have no say in decisions that will impact millions of women.
In reaction, IFUW was one of many NGOs  that signed a letter written by the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, WEDO, to the Secretary General. The letter  urged for  “equitable representation of women and men†in the  Advisory Board and stressed that “women and men both have capacities, expertise and roles to play in responding to the threats of climate change effectively and  efficientlyâ€. A list of qualified women who could be nominated for the group was suggested.
IFUW  believes that if gender equality is to be achieved, the UN must serve as a model. Therefore,  the IFUW Board of Officers has decided to circulate a petition which will call for gender equality in all UN appointed  Committees and High Level Advisory Boards, Working Groups and Task Forces.
What is your reaction and what could further be done at a national level to advocate for gender equality within the decision-making bodies of UN and its agencies?
How can 19 Men + 0 Women be equal to equality?.Of course it is equal to discrimnation, oppression, humiliation and
men egocentricity. If UN with all their Millennium Goals set for achivement by 2010 could do this,then UN is or has been deceitful and hypocritical. It is high time women take
their own destinies in their own hands.
Women should desire greatness including leadership and decision making positions. Women should be assertive and be ready to “fight” for their rights.Men cannot be dominating women all over the globe. They want women’s votes but thinks leadership positions is their bath rights.
Gender Policy at the national level is paramount.
It is certainly a shock that the Secretary General of the UN who has spoken so positively about the UN agency for women would at the same time appoint a high level advisory committee with no women on it. There must have been women to choose! It is an extremely narrow view and one that sets us all back.
NZFGW strongly applauds the action taken by IFUW in signing the WEDO letter. We share IFUW and other NGOs’ indignation that the United Nations – the organisation with crucial leadership roles and responsibilities for the state of the world – has conducted itself so inappropriately.
As there is no shortage of excellent women eminently qualified for positions in the Climate Change Financing group, one has to conclude that women were not wanted. We shall be registering our concern in other quarters also.
CCM, CIR – NZFGW
IFUW members who are also members of the United Nations Association in their own country (and in my experience these UNAs are heavily dependent on women for their membership) should make their displeasure clear and try to ge the Association to lodge a protest with the Sexretary General
Clearly advocacy to UN on this issue from women and men around the world through WEDO and an IFUW petition are valuable.
The incident reminds me of a similar occasion I faced in Australia in 1978 when the Commonwealth Minister for Environment put up a similar proposition to the Prime Minister for approval of a National Environment Committee. Fortunately as I was Senior Adviser for Social Issues, including Environment in the PM’s Department, at the time,the Cabinet submission was referred to me for comment. I drew to the attention of the then PM Bob Hawke the absence of women from a committee for an issue where women were keenly interested and involved. The PM had a strong commitment to gender equity and I was pleased to see him refer it back to the Minister for amendment – with a handwritten comment in the margin containing a popular Australian expletive!
This appointment of an all-male UN committee again points to the importance of the establishment of the new gender machinery and close advisers to the SG who are able to provide advice when these committees are put together.
A major issue is that countries are called to nominate experts for such committees and forever they have been putting up the names of men – often as political paybacks rather than experts.
One way to counteract this, and we have included it in the IFUW petition, is to insist that countries always nominate a man and a woman for all UN positions so that a gender balance as well as a country and expertise balance can be decided.
Any high level group — or any advisory body should insist on at least 30% representation of women. Isn’t that we are all after? Its the height of hypocrisy that they can’t find one woman for a board like that or perhaps they forgot? World leadership should role model the transformation we are trying to bring — gender equality, accountablity and transparency and participation. Let’s make noise and insist.