United Nations, Mar 7: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the UN’s greatest challenge in reaching gender parity is in its field missions.
Guterres made the remarks when addressing the Group of Friends for Gender Parity at the UN, which comprises 148 UN member states advocating for women leadership.
“I urge you to increase your nominations for leadership positions in the field,” he told the audience. “It is imperative that we make the most of the rich diversity of expertise and leadership skills in our men and women from around the globe.”
Since Guterres took office as the UN chief in 2017, the world body has made headway in gender parity.
“In 2019, for the first time in the UN history, we reached parity in the Senior Management Group and among resident coordinators,” he said.
“On Jan. 1 of this year, we attained a further milestone: parity among all full-time senior leaders — ASGs (assistant-secretary-generals) and USGs (under-secretary-generals)– with 90 women and 90 men at that level in the organization, not including the specialized agencies,” he said.
“Our goal is to reach parity at all levels of the organization, and in all entities,” Guterres said.
“We need women to lead our political mediation efforts as well as be our chief economists, our peacekeepers and our engineers,” he added.
(AGENCIES)
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