This article was first published 12 September.
As the race for UN Secretary-General nears its next stage, it is looking less likely that the UN will elect its first female head. These developments are shedding new light on the most recent list of male-dominated, top contenders and calling into question what they have done to promote gender parity.
Calls for a woman to lead the organization have been widely spurred on by the UN’s inability to make good on its own commitments. Despite over 20 years of commitments to gender parity, inside the UN, women represent just 15% of country Ambassadors and only 22% of senior positions. In the UN’s most senior positions (called Assistant-Secretaries-General and Under-Secretaries-General) women were outnumbered 37 to 129 in 2015.
