Global IssuesThree Ex-UN Leaders Form Women’s Group to Save Multilateralism
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 04 (IPS) - Dulcie Leimbach* was a fellow of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center of CUNY from 2012 to 2017. She is the founder of PassBlue, for which she edits and writes, covering primarily the United Nations, West Africa, peacekeeping operations and women's issues.
As multilateralism takes a beating from President Trump amid the "new world disorder," as one European diplomat put it, three women who know the United Nations inside and out through previous top leadership jobs have originated a Group of Women Leaders for Change and Inclusion.
The goal is to bring together former UN female colleagues who held top jobs as well to "partner and raise our voices on matters regarding women equality and multilateralism," said Susana Malcorra, one of the three women who started the group.
"By now we are more than 25 and keep adding."
The other two former UN leaders behind it are Helen Clark, who ran the UN Development Program from 2009 to 2017 and was the prime minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008; and Irina Bokova, a Bulgarian politician who was the director-general of Unesco from 2009 to 2017.
They plan to advocate for gender equality and multilateralism through op-eds, papers, conferences, mentoring and other sources in multiple languages "to shed light into matters that each one of us have worked in our different fields of expertise," Malcorra said.
Malcorra, an Argentine, was the chief of cabinet for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from 2012 to 2015 and previously led the UN Department of Field Support.
She left the UN to become foreign minister of her country under President Mauricio Macri. She left that post in 2017 to move to Madrid to be near her family, she said.
All three women were candidates in 2016 for UN secretary-general, to succeed Ban, a South Korean.
Of 13 candidates, seven were women. António Guterres, who ran the UN Refugee Agency for 10 years and was a prime minister of Portugal, was selected by the UN Security Council for a five-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2017.
No woman has ever headed the UN.
The three women are now affiliated with different academia, think tanks and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The idea for the initiative, which has no outside financing yet, came from a conversation among the women, Malcorra said, at last fall's annual General Assembly open debate. It took shape in November and December, when the "scouting" process began.
"We felt that, as candidates to become SG" — secretary-general — "it would be very powerful to launch this together."
The trio are introducing the group as the International Women's Day approaches, on March 8, and the yearly UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) kicks off for 11 days on March 11.
They will use their personal Twitter handles to promote the group and these hashtags: #WomenLeadersForPositiveChange; #WomenForMultilateralism; and #WomenLeadersForInclusiveChange.
The timing of the group's debut coincides as other international efforts to reinforce multilateralism — the policy of countries working jointly to solve global problems — include France and Germany partnering for the first time as rotating presidents of the UN Security Council for March and April, respectively.
The launching also occurs as France and Germany work jointly to keep Europe unified while Britain exits from the European Union and some politicians elsewhere in Europe — such as in Hungary and Italy — seem intent on fragmenting the continent further.
This is a "loosely connected" network of women, former colleagues and friends, Malcorra said of the new group, "who share some serious concerns about the state of the world, the multilateral institutions and, particularly, about a trend to pushback policies regarding gender parity and women empowerment. The signs we see are very worrisome in this regard."
The group has written an open, two-page letter, which begins: "We join our voices as women colleagues who have worked in governments and in multilateral organizations in support of promoting humanitarian relief, advocating for human rights principles and normative policies, advancing sustainable development, and resolving some of the world's most complex conflicts.
"We ourselves have leveraged multilateralism in order to drive positive change for peoples and our planet. Now we collectively call attention to the need to achieve full gender equality and empowerment of women across all ambits of society and the critical importance of multilateralism as a vehicle in support of that."
The space that women leaders now collectively occupy, the letter warned, was "not opened up easily and can never be taken for granted."
It is signed by, among others, Sahle-Work Zewde, the president of Ethiopia who served as UN envoy to the African Union; Baroness Valerie Amos, a Briton who ran the UN's Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; Ertharin Cousin, an American who directed the World Food Program; Louise Fréchette, a Canadian diplomat who was a UN deputy secretary-general; Navi Pillay, a South African judge who was most recently the UN's high commissioner for human rights; Mary Robinson, an ex-president of Ireland and former UN high commissioner for human rights; Zainab Bangura, a politician from Sierra Leone who was the UN's envoy on sexual violence in conflict; and Radhika Coomaraswamy, a Sri Lankan who served as a UN envoy for children and armed conflict.
What can women bring to multilateralism that is different from what men can offer?
"What women always bring to the table: a different and enriching perspective," Malcorra said. "But multilateralism is also key to the advancement of policy discussions about gender as the Beijing Conference proved. CSW is not moving as envisioned and we must keep pushing."
The initiative, Malcorra added, will not finish in March. "We expect to continue until UNGA" — the annual UN General Assembly opening debate, in the fall.
*Previously, Dulcie Leimbach was an editor for the Coalition for the UN Convention Against Corruption; from 2008 to 2011, she was the publications director of the United Nations Association (UNA) of the USA, where she edited its flagship magazine, The InterDependent, and migrated it online in 2010. She was also the senior editor of UNA's annual book, "A Global Agenda: Issues Before the UN." She has also worked as an editorial consultant to various UN agencies. Before UNA, Leimbach was an editor at The New York Times for more than 20 years, editing and writing for most sections of the paper, including the Magazine, Book Review and Op-Ed.
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