Associated Press, March 7, 2006
Annan Draws Fire Over Gender Equality
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- More than 240 women from over 50 countries accused U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of failing to promote women's rights and of neglecting gender equality in his U.N. reform plans.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan is proposing a shakeup of U.N. management practices. that would create a mobile civil service, allow a one-time staff buyout costing about $100,000 per person, modernize technology and consider outsourcing.
The proposal, to be unveiled Tuesday, is a response to last year's investigation into the U.N. oil-for-food program which concluded that the U.N.'s shoddy management was partly to blame for widespread corruption.
It is also an effort to transform the U.N.'s post-World War II management structure and practices so the world body can deal with 21st century problems.
In an open letter to Annan, the women said they were ''disappointed and frankly outraged'' that strengthening the U.N. machinery focusing on women is not a central part of the U.N.'s reform agenda. They also expressed deep concern ''that the position of women in high-level U.N. posts has stagnated.''
Charlotte Bunch, executive director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership, accused Annan of paying lip service to women rights.
''Although we've had a lot of rhetorical commitment to women's rights, it still hasn't made it on to the big agenda of U.N. reform,'' she said at a news conference Monday to highlight the letter.
At the 1995 U.N. women's conference in Beijing, and at the 10-year review last year, commitments were made by the United Nations and governments to achieve equality of the sexes.
The women are attending the 50th session of the Commission on the Status of Women and come from over 70 organizations. They urged Annan in his address to the commission on Wednesday, which is International Women's Day, to announce concrete proposals for advancing gender equality and strengthening the U.N. bodies that work for women's rights.
June Zeitlin, executive director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization, said women attending the commission's two-week meeting ''are demanding that in ... this critical time of U.N. reform, that women be seated at every decision-making table in these discussions and that the women's equality agenda be addressed.''
The letter noted that a high-level panel appointed recently to study how the U.N. system deals with development, humanitarian assistance and the environment has only three women out of 15 members.
This week, the U.N. announced an all-male short list for the new executive director of the U.N. Environment Program despite a campaign by women's groups to appoint a woman, Zeitlin said, singling out Norway's former development and aid minister Hilde Johnson as very well qualified.
''This disparity between men and women at the U.N, is getting worse and we're really at an all-time low,'' she said. ''In 2006, this is just unacceptable in an institution that's committed to gender equality and women's participation in decision-making.''
Perhaps the problem is best exemplified by last Friday's appointment of Annan's chief of staff Mark Malloch Brown to replace Louise Frechette as deputy secretary-general when she steps down on March 31, Zeitlin said.
Pawadee Tonguthai, head of Asia Pacific Women's Watch who spoke on behalf of women in the region, said they protest ''the fact that the U.N. hasn't been acting as a role model for governments in terms of putting more women in decision-making roles or taking care of this equal participation by women.''
''If you don't have the U.N. as a role model,'' she said, ''the government itself will also go backward.''
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