More than 240 women from over 50 countries has accused UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in an open letter of failing to promote womens rights and of neglecting gender equality in his reform plans for the world organization.
Kofi Annan is proposing a shakeup of UN management practices. that would create a mobile civil service, allow a one-time staff buyout (gyldent håndtryk) costing about 100.000 US dollar (620.000 DKR) per person, modernize technology and consider outsourcing.
The proposal, unveiled Tuesday, is a response to last years investigation into the UN oil-for-food program which concluded that the UNs shoddy (dårlige) management was partly to blame for widespread corruption.
It is also an effort to transform the UNs post-World War II management structure and practices so the world body can deal with 21st century problems.
In an open letter to Annan, the women said they were “disappointed and frankly outraged” that strengthening the UN machinery focusing on women is not a central part of the UNs reform agenda.
They also expressed deep concern “that the position of women in high-level UN posts has stagnated”.
Charlotte Bunch, executive director of the Center for Womens Global Leadership, accused Annan of paying lip service to women rights.
– Although we have had a lot of rhetorical commitment to womens rights, it still has not made it on to the big agenda of UN reform, she said Monday.
At the 1995 UN womens conference in Beijing, and at the 10-year review last year, commitments were made by the United Nations and governments to achieve equality of the sexes.
The women are attending the 50th session of the Commission on the Status of Women and come from over 70 organizations.
They urged Annan in his address to the commission on Wednesday, which is International Womens Day (8 March), to announce concrete proposals for advancing gender equality and strengthening the UN bodies that work for womens rights.
June Zeitlin, executive director of the Womens Environment and Development Organization, said women attending the commissions two-week meeting “are demanding that in … this critical time of UN reform, that women be seated at every decision-making table in these discussions and that the womens equality agenda be addressed”.
The letter noted that a high-level panel appointed recently to study how the UN system deals with development, humanitarian assistance and the environment has only three women out of 15 members.
This week, the UN announced an all-male short list for the new executive director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) (replacing German Klaus Töpfer, red.) despite a campaign by womens groups to appoint a woman, Zeitlin said.
She singled out Norways former development and aid minister Hilde Frafjord Johnson as very well qualified. The 42 year old politician, born in East Africa – where UNEP is seated -, is recalled as a very energetic minister for development affairs from 2001 to 2005, where she left because of a change of government in Oslo.
– This disparity between men and women at the UN is getting worse and we are really at an all-time low, she said, adding: – In 2006, this is just unacceptable in an institution that is committed to gender equality and womens participation in decision-making.
Perhaps the problem is best exemplified by last Fridays appointment of Annans chief of staff Mark Malloch Brown to replace Louise Frechette as deputy secretary-general when she steps down on March 31, Zeitlin said.
Pawadee Tonguthai, head of Asia Pacific Womens Watch who spoke on behalf of women in the region, said they protest “the fact that the UN has not been acting as a role model for governments in terms of putting more women in decision-making roles or taking care of this equal participation by women”.
– If you do not have the UN as a role model the government itself will also go backward, she said.
Kilde: The Push Journal
