UN system on track to gender parity: Guterres

UNITED NATIONS, March 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that the UN system is on track to achieving gender parity.

"Today, I am proud to report that we are on a positive trajectory toward achieving gender parity across the United Nations system," he told a meeting of the Group of Friends on Gender Parity.

Gender parity among 190 senior UN leadership posts has been achieved, two years ahead of the target date, he said.

In the UN Secretariat, the proportion of women in the professional categories and above has increased to over 42 percent from 37 percent in 2017. Since 2019, there has been significant progress in hard-to-shift mid-management levels, he said.

The achievements were made while the world organization was grappling with a crippling financial crisis, necessitating a freeze on regular-budget recruitment, noted Guterres.

At the current rate of progress, the UN Secretariat is forecast to reach the parity range in the second quarter of 2027, before the target date of 2028 set out in the Gender Parity Strategy, he said.

"The strategy is working. But we are not there yet. While we have made steady progress at headquarter locations, our progress in the field has been slower and uneven," he said.

In peace operations, 32 percent of civilian personnel are women and 68 percent are men. This is a slight improvement from 2017 when women accounted for 28 percent of all civilian personnel in field missions. But, in some missions, women represent just one-quarter of international staff component, he said.

It is in the interests of the United Nations to change these numbers which requires a number of very important changes in rules and member states will be very important in this regard. UN peace operations, as well as those they serve, will benefit from the perspectives and experience that female personnel bring, he said.

Achieving gender parity at the United Nations is a collective endeavor. Ultimately, gender equality is a question of power, he said.

"We still live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture and male-dominated power structures. These structures allow men's power to dominate in different degrees in cultures around the world. All of the challenges facing our world today -- from an unequal recovery from COVID-19, to climate change, to intergenerational inequality, poverty and violence, to the tragic lack of peace in our world -- are largely the result of a deeply rooted patriarchy," he said.

There is still a long way to go to obtain the Sustainable Development Goal of gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls by 2030, said Guterres.