The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, was officially created on October 16, 1945 with the mission of leading the international effort to end hunger.
Its first CEO was the Scottish nutritionist John Boyd Orr;
Currently (since 2019) the Chinese agronomist Qu Dongyu is at the helm.
Never, in its 78 years of history, has a woman led this organization.
She is one of 21, out of a list of 54 analyzed by Global Women Leaders Voices (GWL), who had never elected a woman to the highest level of responsibility until October 2023. In a mosaic of photographs with the faces of The leaders of multilateral entities from 1945 to October 2023, only 13% would have a female face.
“From 1945 to this moment, organizations have only been led by women 12% of the time.”
This is the data from the report
Women in multilateralism 2024,
presented this Monday during the meeting that GWL Voices held in Madrid,
that has most outraged its executive director, María Fernanda Espinosa.
In the opinion of the former president of the UN Assembly (2018-2019), this photograph of inequality revealed by the study of the “most important” entities in the international arena is due to “the inertia of patriarchal structures.”
The one who was the first Latin American to preside over the UN Assembly criticizes that humanity is still in the dynamic of “for the first time a woman”, although at the same time she celebrates this type of announcements, for example, from the European Investment Bank, as the Spanish Nadia Calviño has assumed the presidency of this organization.
“The first woman in 66 years;
“It is good news,” she comments.
More information
The UN warns that prejudice against women is entrenched around the world
Of the 23 organizations that have elected a leader in the last two years, the study finds, eight have chosen a woman.
Seven of them were appointed in 2023, among them, Calviño.
Of them, four were the first female leaders, as in the case of the International Telecommunication Union, which in 157 years had only been led by men.
Until now.
Or the International Organization for Migration, which has taken seven decades to see a woman, Amy Pope, as director general.
Despite the progress, stopping the masculine trend that international organizations are navigating is an arduous task, says Espinosa.
“Recent data shows improvement, but it is slow,” she laments.
In fact, the average proportion of elected female leaders in the last five decades of the last century was 4%, the study notes.
Between 2000 and 2010, this proportion rose from 17% to 31%.
Since 2010 there has been an acceleration.
It is an issue of demographic justice.
Women have shown that we can manage making a difference
The GWL asks that these advances towards gender equality that have been achieved in recent years be sustained over time.
“Let equality be part of the normal practices of international organizations,” Espinosa reasons.
“It is an issue of demographic justice.
Women have shown that we can manage and make a difference.”
“Many studies say so,” the president points out: they are at the forefront of peace processes or in the fight against climate change.
It is in the management teams of the organizations studied that the greatest progress in terms of equality is observed, according to the authors of the report: “Almost half of the organizations have achieved or are close to achieving parity.”
The average proportion of women in these groups is 42% and most range between 25 and 50%, they note.
In 10 of the organizations, they represent more than half of the leadership.
Data that not so long ago were “pure fantasy,” write the editors of the investigation.
“It has not been accidental,” they say, underlining the need to delve into parity strategies.
Well, they denounce that the multilateral system, and many countries in particular, proclaim a promotion of equality that they then do not apply to themselves.
“Governments systematically favor men when appointing representatives to the governing bodies of international institutions,” denounces GWL Voices.
A proposal
Only four women have ever presided over the United Nations Assembly, a position that changes annually.
One of them was María Fernanda Espinosa herself.
“We were all from the global south and the number is insufficient,” she complains.
Hence, at the meeting that GWL Voices holds this Monday in the Spanish capital, its more than 70 members will launch a campaign to ask for gender alternation, maintaining regional rotation.
That is, each male president should be succeeded by a woman.
“The idea of starting with this request regarding the General Assembly is symbolic,” explains Espinosa.
They hope that, if a commitment to alternation is achieved in this body, others will follow their example, including the UN Secretary General, currently held by António Guterres.
“The next one has to be a woman.
For legitimacy and historical relevance,” she says.
The three founders of GWL Voices know well that the UN glass ceiling is very thick.
Unbreakable.
The New Zealander Helen Clark, the Bulgarian Irina Bokova and the Argentine Susana Malcorra were formal candidates for the general secretary.
If any of them had been chosen, the chosen one would have been the first woman to assume this responsibility and her face would be the first female among the paintings that honor the secretaries general in the lobby of the United Nations headquarters in New York.
That image will have to wait.
“They lost and came together to create Global Women Leaders,” Espinosa recalls.
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