NEW YORK, United Nations
With cascading crises casting
a pall over the proceedings at this year’s United Nations General Assembly,
Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová had this reminder on the first day of
debate: “We cannot save our planet if we leave out the vulnerable — the women,
the girls, the minorities.”
Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová
But gender parity at the
world’s preeminent forum of leaders still seems far out of sight. Eight women
are set to speak at the U.N. General Assembly on Friday. That’s more than
double the number — five — of women that spoke across the first three days of
the summit.
On Friday, three vice
presidents and five prime ministers — including Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina and
New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden — will take the rostrum or give their address in a
prerecorded video.
“As the first female president
in the history of my country, the burden of expectation to deliver gender
equality is heavier on my shoulder,” said Samia Hassan, the president of
Tanzania. When it comes to such equality, she said, ”“COVID-19 is threatening
to roll back the gains that we have made,”
Hassan was the lone woman to
address the General Assembly on Thursday.
Despite those 13 women making
up less than 10% of speakers over the first four days, the 13 represent an
increase from last year, when just nine
women spoke over the course of the session. There are also
three more female heads of state or heads of government — 24 —
than there were at this point in 2020.
“There can be no democracy, no
security and no development without one-half of the humankind,” Estonia
President Kersti Kaljulaid said Wednesday, also underscoring women’s
vulnerability in society.
The theme of vulnerability has
been at the forefront during a week haunted by the ever-looming specters of
climate change, coronavirus and conflict. Most of the speeches have taken on
the tenor of pleas issued at the precipice, batting away the summit’s theme of
“building resiliency through hope.”
Dire predictions were not
limited to the General Assembly. At a U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday,
the high-level officials urged stepped-up
action to address the security implications of climate change
and make global warming a key part of all U.N. peacekeeping operations. They
said warming is making the world less safe, pointing to Africa’s
conflict-plagued Sahel region and Syria and Iraq.
Scores of leaders have already
spoken, and many have left New York altogether. But some of the most
anticipated countries have yet to deliver their addresses: North Korea, Myanmar
and Afghanistan — all perennially but also lately much in the news — are
expected to close out the session Monday afternoon.
Friday alone promises fireworks,
with a slate of speakers from countries roiled by internal and external
conflict.
The president of the
ethnically divided Cyprus is scheduled to open the proceedings, soon followed
by a Lebanon also riven by internal strife. The morning plenary will also see
addresses from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the prime minister of
Armenia, lambasted Thursday in Azerbaijan’s speech in the aftermath of the
Nagorno-Karabakh war.
The afternoon will see both
Albania and Serbia, perpetually at odds over Kosovo, as well as a Pakistan
feeling pressure on its eastern border with India and western border with
Afghanistan.
“Their victory has instilled a
tremendous hope. It’s a shot in the arm, at a time when we are not even allowed
to speak openly,” a former Kashmiri rebel who has fought against India told The
Associated Press last week of the Taliban’s ascension in
Afghanistan.
Pakistan and India, which goes
Saturday, are historically eager users of the “right of
reply” function, which allows diplomats to lob polemics
defending their countries in response to speeches from unfriendly nations. That
window of opportunity opens Friday night, after the leaders’ speeches conclude.
- AP
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