UN’s intact glass ceiling puts relevance at risk

When UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon steps down at the end of the year, he would like a woman to take his place.

For 70 years the global organization’s top leadership has reflected the diversity of its member states, with leaders from Asia, Africa, Western Europe and Latin America. Yet for half the potential candidates, that “highest, hardest glass ceiling” has remained intact.

This hardly seems progressive for an organization dedicated to gender equality as a sustainable development goal. A female secretary-general would send a strong message the UN also walks the talk.

Opponents of gender parity assume it comes at the expense of the most qualified candidate. The same could be said for geographic representation, yet no one questions its importance in preserving a carefully achieved balance among 193 member states. It would be insulting — and inaccurate — to suggest there were no qualified candidates on an entire continent. Gender considerations are no different; we just have to decide they’re important.

There are 11 candidates running for the top job, five of whom are women. In two polls conducted by the Security Council, none of the women ranked higher than third place. After further polling, a preferred candidate will be presented to member states for ratification this fall.

Ban acknowledges he has no say in choosing his replacement. But after eight men in a row, he feels it’s “high time” a woman take the helm. He is not alone. A campaign urging the Security Council to elect a woman secretary-general has attracted high-level support from senior UN officials as well as scholars around the world. Signatories include several Nobel Peace Prize laureates and the former prime minister of Senegal.

This chorus of support has provoked remarkably little backlash. It’s tempting to imagine the world simply accepts the time for female leadership has come. But the sexist vitriol of the U.S. presidential race lays that theory to waste.

Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to enact gender parity in cabinet generated more lively discussion about merit versus identity than this election.

Perhaps the naysayers do not realistically expect any candidate to unseat the current favourite, António Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal and, more recently, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. No question he’s a catch. However, there are strong contenders in UN veteran and Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra, as well as Irina Bokova, the first female director general of UNESCO, who has the advantage of hailing from Bulgaria. There has never been a secretarygeneral from Eastern Europe; several members argue their region is due.

Unfortunately, the absence of backlash has a simpler explanation: People don’t care that much.

There are many people who feel the United Nations is crumbling into irrelevancy. When it was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, the UN was a beacon of hope for a better path to peace.

That changed after 9/11. In particular, Western interventions in Iraq and Kosovo, without regard to the UN, had many people sounding its death knell.

There’s plenty of debate about the legitimacy of force outside UN-sanctioned action. But the international body’s relevance goes well beyond the peacekeeping efforts of the Security Council.

Thirty separate agencies, funds and programs comprise the UN. They provide essential leadership in fighting poverty, reducing inequality and charting sustainable growth. These are global challenges.

The UN is an organization defined by its inclusiveness. Perhaps it’s time it showed.