Leadership change and health at UN Women

Abstract

In Sense and sensibility, Jane Austen writes of the precedence of behaviour over words: “I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly”. The same phrase could apply to the uproar in the UK in June, when it was announced that an image of Austen might replace that of Charles Darwin on the £10 note. Notwithstanding that Florence Nightingale was featured previously on the same denomination, the spiteful debate about Austen's worth was influenced by her sex as well as her writing. Regardless of what is said, misogyny lurks in all societies and its unwelcome appearance defines underlying attitudes to women. For this reason and its many manifestations, UN Women has an important role as a global champion for women and girls; and the change in leadership later this month will have important implications for the welfare of women, especially in terms of health. UN Women, established in 2010, is dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, with a mission to accelerate programmes that promote the needs of women. As a young entity, UN Women is striving to build both its reputation and funding—factors influenced directly by the quality of leadership and vision. Michelle Bachelet, the founding Executive Director of UN Women (and former President of Chile) resigned in March, 2013, to run again for President of Chile in November's election. She was highly respected and did a tremendous job in making UN Women a visible and vocal advocate for gender equity. Her departure is a loss to the UN, and creates high expectations for her successor: Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, formerly Deputy President of South Africa from 2005 to 2008. A change in leadership provides an opportunity to reflect on UN Women's strategic priorities and direction, with reference to the particular strengths, such as youth work and sub-Saharan perspective that Mlambo-Ngcuka might bring. Empowerment of women in South Africa, as elsewhere, has been accelerated by improvements in health. Indeed, the fundamental importance of several health outcomes is recognised by UN Women in their June, 2013 position paper: A transformative stand-alone goal on achieving gender equality, women's rights and women's empowerment: Imperatives and key components. The proposed indicators include mortality in girls and boys aged 5 years or younger, prevalence of HIV/AIDS, maternal mortality ratio, and use of skilled birth attendants. Important outcomes, to be sure, but ones that are already monitored by other UN organisations and hence do not reflect the sort of imaginative or bold thinking that UN Women will need to set itself apart from existing agencies and establish its niche as a key entity for women. UN Women must not allow the world to neglect women's health, nor to forget that physical and mental health involve far more than bearing and raising children. This approach was of limited success as a Millennium Development Goal, so must not constrain thinking for the post-2015 development agenda. Women's wellbeing is directly affected by many other threats to health that provide the new leadership team with a rich menu to draw upon when setting priorities. In addition to violence, HIV/AIDS, and limited access to family planning, reproductive and intra-partum care that are already noted by UN Women, other examples include occupational health and safety, indoor cooking fires, trafficking, sex work (see World Report in this issue), adolescent health, and displacement. Added to which are unequal access to social determinants of health and the widening gulf for services between women in rural and urban areas of developing countries. The challenge will be to identify the comparative advantage of UN Women over other established UN entities, such as those for population, development, children, refugees, and health. UN Women should consider what special attributes it can offer as a final common pathway for issues that pertain to women and cross sectors. An example might be those initiatives that involve several agencies, such as autonomous and universal access to quality health care. At a time when the role of women in society is under particular scrutiny, violence against women and adolescents is increasing, and political attention has been brought to UN Women, a priority for the new Executive Director, Mlambo-Ngcuka, will be to convert the powerful advocacy for gender equity of Bachelet into practical and effective programmes. The test—as for any UN institution—will not be the output of words, nor even changes in attitudes, but the extent to which the policies of UN Women actually improve the lives of women in their own countries. Thailand's migrant sex workers struggle to access health careThailand is a country well-known for having a good structure in place for caring for the health of sex workers but non-Thais are excluded from this system. Sima Barmania reports. Full-Text PDF