Though it was initiated by women’s organisation in 1996, the campaign titled, “It’s time for a Woman”, is a rallying call for the Security Council composed of five members (China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States) and the other 10 rotating members of 2006; namely Argentina, Congo, Denmark, Ghana, Greece, Japan, Peru, Qatar, Slovakia and Tanzania to nominate a woman to take over the Secretary General’s office.

Like in Ernest Hemingway wisdom, “never mistake motions for action”, the UN has over the last 30 years given a false impression of commitment to gender equality. The organization has all along given the impression that women would hold an equal number of key positions. However, this has not been the case because until now the UN has not achieved gender equality status in its own institution.

The question on every woman’s lip is, “What kind of message is the UN sending out in terms of its apparent commitment to gender equality when there has been no woman secretary general since 1945!

Surely this must be the time for them to put “money where their mouths” are so to speak.

The words of Rachel Mayanja, the assistant Secretary General, Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women in an interview with GEM during the Beijing Plus 10 conference seems to pour cold water to the women’s expectations. Her statement “In the last 30 years, men have gone to the moon and back, yet women are still at the same place they were,” sheds some light at the laxity of the UN to move from motion into action.

“It’s time for a woman” is a campaign being championed by Equality Now for a woman to head the United Nations. This is backed by the fact that the Beijing Platform for Action adopted at the UN conference in 1995 called for the development of a “mechanism to nominate women candidates for appointment to senior posts at the UN”.

But a senior gender advisor with a UN agency argues that “patriarchy has influenced the UN culture. With many women having the right brains to sit in the top office, a campaign has to been mounted for the system to wake up and see whether a woman can be slotted for the job”.

Quoted in an article on the campaign, Equality Now’s Executive Director Taina Bien-Aime’ argued, “Women’s unequal access to positions of power and decision-making in the UN and around the world hinders progress towards the UN’s goals which include equality, development and peace.”

As various regions jostle for the best candidate, the growing pressure for a woman Secretary General has been necessitated by the fact that among the candidates that have already shown interest, there is not single woman.

Reports by James Bone in New York indicate that among the likely candidates are only six women and 37 men under-secretary generals in the UN and quite a number of women are already leaving. One of those leaving soon is Brigita Schmögnerova, head of the Economic Commission for Europe.

The number of women under-secretary generals at the United Nations does not speak well of an institution which has committed itself to achieving gender parity in the UN secretariat every year.

The campaign, therefore, has recommended 18 top women who have what it takes to take over from Kofi Annan with some of them having headed a UN agency. Among them is Gro Harlem Brundtlan, former Norwegian Prime Minister and also former WHO Director- General.

From Africa, notable names being proposed include Navanethem Pillay from South Africa who is an ICC Judge. Others are the current Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf who was once a UN ICTR President and Anna Tibaijuka from Tanzania Executive Director UN-Habitat.

But going with a geographical rotation even Asia has a number of women who qualify, namely Nafis Sadik, former Executive Director UNFPA, Leticia Shahani, Former UN Assistant Secretary General, Aung San Kyl, Prime Minister, Burma and Sadako Ogata, former UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

While member countries might be looking at the post as a chance to offer favours or settle scores, 10 years after the Beijing Platform for Action, women are tired of talking about women and human rights and for Ms Mayanja, “This is a gap that needs to be filled, and filled immediately.”

---