U.N. still too much a boys' club

While most of the high-profile positions at the United Nations are held by men, women at the world organization tend to work effectively behind the scenes, according to this Toronto Star column. Just one example, according to this commentary, is Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette, who manages the UN's 25,000-person secretariat but is "barely known" outside the world body and Canada. The Toronto Star (4/11)

Apr. 11, 2005. 01:00 AM

U.N. still too much a boys' club CAROL GOAR Four days after naming John Bolton, a bombastic critic of the United Nations, as America's 25th ambassador to the organization, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice quietly appointed Shirin Tahir-Kheli, a highly regarded diplomat, as her senior adviser on U.N. reform. Tahir-Kheli, a U.S. citizen born in India and raised in Pakistan, worked with Rice at the National Security Council. Like her boss, she brought impressive academic credentials to the job. She earned a PhD in international relations at the University of Pennsylvania and taught at Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. Army War College and Temple University. She served as alternate U.S. representative to the U.N. in the '90s. Her areas of expertise include human rights, development and South Asian affairs. She will report directly to Rice and work closely with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Tahir-Kheli's appointment went almost unnoticed, except in the Asian subcontinent. But to U.N. watchers, it fits an interesting pattern. Men hold most of the high-profile roles in the global organization while women work in less visible ways. Men argue over the fate of the 60-year-old institution while women coax results out of its balky machinery. Any generalization, especially one that involves gender, is risky. Exceptions to this one leap to mind: Louise Arbour, who heads the U.N. High Commission on Human Rights, attracted plenty of attention by indicting Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes in 1999. Madeleine Albright, who served as U.S. envoy to the U.N. under Bill Clinton, was never far from the spotlight. And former Irish president Mary Robinson, who served as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, ruffled feathers far and wide with her uncompromising defence of civil liberties. But the more typical way women get things done at the U.N. is to work behind the scenes or in front-line agencies. Take Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette, the global body's second-highest-ranking bureaucrat. Outside U.N. headquarters and Ottawa, where she worked as a civil servant for 27 years, the trilingual Montrealer is barely known. Although she manages the U.N.'s 25,000-person secretariat, she has always remained in Annan's shadow. Consider Catherine Bertini, under secretary-general for management. She served for 10 years as executive director of the World Food Program in Rome, an 8,000-person agency that distributes food in 82 countries. Yet the American relief expert, who began her career as a public relations officer in Chicago, is hardly a household name. Then there is Carol Bellamy, head of UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund). She runs a 9,000-person organization with operations in 160 countries. The outspoken New York lawyer is no shrinking violet. But she has little patience for U.N. politics. She guards her agency's autonomy fiercely. Women from Asia and Africa are even less prominent. Thoraya Obaid of Saudi Arabia who runs the United Nations Population Fund and Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka of Tanzania, director of UN-HABITAT, are making their mark with almost no Western recognition. In some cases this is a matter of choice. More often, it is a response to circumstances. Women simply don't have many soapboxes at the U.N. Only a handful of countries — none of them major powers — have female representatives at the U.N. There has never been a female secretary-general. When Annan was nominated in 1997, several women's names were mentioned: Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway; Sadako Ogata, former U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and Mary Robinson. But there was never much doubt that the job would go to a man. While supporting gender parity in principle, the U.N. is still dominated by men. Just seven out of its 40 undersecretaries and 10 of its 45 assistant secretaries are women. In all the current talk of revamping the Security Council, cleaning up the Secretariat and re-thinking the U.N.'s mandate, this has scarcely been mentioned. It would be absurd to suggest that women can turn the U.N. into a modern, effective global agency. But it would be wrong to leave them on the sidelines. Thanks to Rice, that is not going to happen. Tahir-Kheli's job is to keep U.N. reform on Washington's agenda and reach out to other nations. "Who is this person? I've never heard of her," said James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, which bills itself as one of the leading voices for U.N. reform. It might be a good idea to find out.

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