A world in peril needs more women working as equals with men

Minister of State Noura Al Kaabi, Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, and Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE's ambassador to the UN, pictured on June 16, 2023. The UAE has recognised the importance of eShow more

As we mark International Women’s Day today, we are reminded of the great contributions that women around the world have made and the glass ceilings they have broken in various male-dominated fields. And yet in a world marked by uncertainty and instability, this year’s anniversary remains bittersweet.

For this day to truly be a celebratory milestone, we must stop and take stock of the significant challenges that still lie ahead, urgently fix the stubborn gender gaps that hold women and girls behind, and take concrete steps to end the dire conditions that many others face. The moral imperative has never been as urgent as it is now.

Gender gaps still exist everywhere. According to various UN reports, we are nowhere near achieving Sustainable Development Goal number 5, on Gender Equality by 2030. It will still take most countries 286 years to close legal gender gaps and end legal discriminatory practices against women, and 140 years to achieve equality in leadership positions in the workplace.

In politics, only 26 countries have women heads of state or government as of January; 13 states have gender-equal cabinets and only six others have gender-equal parliaments, of which the UAE is one. Diplomacy remains a man’s world where nearly 80 per cent of all ambassadors and permanent representatives worldwide are men.

We witness inequality in the climate space, too. Climate change is disproportionately affecting women and girls in the most vulnerable communities globally.

By 2050, the UN estimates that the climate crisis will push 158 million women and girls into poverty and will leave many to face acute food shortages. In the Mena region, 21 million women are expected to face severe food insecurity by 2050, compared to 12 million men.

This is a crisis that we must avoid for the sake of our future generations, and we have the tools to do so.

Gaza, where more than 70 per cent of those killed are women and girls and where thousands more are currently fighting hunger, disease and displacement since the October 7 attacks, is testing the resilience and adequacy of every gender equality and women empowerment convention and framework that we’ve created to protect women and prevent the mass atrocities of the past from happening again.

Today, the Women, Peace and Security agenda and feminist foreign policy frameworks sound hollow amid a war that is killing and leaving countless Palestinian women behind. Our belief in gender equality must extend to Palestine, too.

The UAE, very early on, recognised the importance of empowering women to take on leadership roles and has directed its foreign and humanitarian aid policy to assist women first. With a third of its cabinet positions occupied by women, two women ministers of state for foreign affairs, 12 women ambassadors and permanent representatives posted in key states, and a gender-balanced diplomatic workforce, the UAE trusts women to make the tough judgement calls, lead its global multilateral efforts to end conflict, and take the progress of the nation to new heights.

With more than $2.3 billion in foreign aid allocated to initiatives and projects targeting women and girls globally between 2017 and 2022, and serious pledges to the WPS agenda and gender equality in general during its tenure in the UN Security Council from 2021 to 2023, the UAE has placed women’s empowerment at the core of its foreign policy. The country’s humanitarian, foreign aid and foreign policy are thus shaped to address women’s empowerment head on.

With the UAE Consensus making history at the conclusion of Cop28 last year, the summit’s presidency dedicated a full day to gender equality on December 4, which witnessed key pledges and declarations to equality in the climate space.

Led by Razan Al Mubarak, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Cop28, the declaration on “Gender Responsive Just Transitions and Climate Action Partnership” was endorsed by 60 countries to enhance women and girls’ leadership in climate action and redouble efforts to promote gender equality in all climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives.

The UAE’s resolve to promote peace, stability, justice and equality globally is unwavering. The nation’s achievements and international commitments bear witness to its belief that crises, problems and challenges everywhere need both women and men to work together, as equal partners, to solve them.

This belief is at the core of what we teach future diplomats at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy. Gender equality and women’s empowerment are an integral part of our mission, our curriculum and our research – and with 60 per cent of our graduates since 2016 being women, we know that equality is well within our reach.

However, outside of our classrooms, the multiple crises we face today will continue to impede any significant progress on gender equality and women’s rights worldwide. It is my hope that on this International Women’s Day, we continue to trust in the power of diplomacy, dialogue and co-operation to find peaceful and sustainable solutions to the problems we face, so that women and girls, everywhere, can thrive.