The time of ‘Madam’ the general secretary

It was a “perhaps” that generated immediate enthusiasm. He pronounced it, doctor and former president of Chile, in an act for the 30th anniversary of the World Conference of Women of Beijing, in New York, two months ago. He answered a clear question of the journalist of the CNN Christiane Amanpour about whether he considers being a general secretary of the United Nations in the non -distant future.

“I am thinking … maybe I will be a candidate for the General Secretariat,” said the former UN commissioner of the UN Human Rights, starting the smile to her interviewer and the applause of much of the auditorium, Hillary Clinton included. Until 2027 you will not have to make relief in the office that the Portuguese occupies today, but the debate has already returned to the foreground: after 80 years of men, it is time to talk about madam The Secretary General.

There will be those who say that the UN has enough to paint less and less in a world where multilateralism cracks, where the certainties that have supported international relations since World War II are lost, with being unable to end wars such as Gaza or Ukraine, with not being able to meet their laudable objectives of the 2030 Agenda, with being discredited or needed with a comprehensive reform.

But it is that the presence of a woman has everything to do with this: having a secretariat would mean a huge symbolic impact and would mean a revulsive to use their resources and their ability to promote real gender equality. An UN that cures its injustices from within can cure more out.

The name of Bachelet (73 years) usually sounds among the possible candidates for the UN General Secretariat, but it is not the only one: there are Mexican Alicia Bárcena, former chancellor of Mexico, former secretary general of ECLAC and current Secretary of the Environment of her country, also 73 years); Irina Bokova, Bulgarian, former Unesco general director (72); Argentina Susana Malcorra, former owner of the exteriors of her country and president of Gwl Voices (70 years); , former Minister of Foreign Relations of Ecuador and former president of the UN General Assembly, as well as executive director of GWL Voices (60 years); The former Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark (75); Costa Ricans Christiana Figueres, who was executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (68 years) and Rebeca Grynspan, General Secretary of the United Nations Conference on Commerce and Development (69); Natalia Gherman, formerly Interim Minister of Moldova and who has been a special representative of the UN Secretary General for Central Asia (56); Vesna Pusić, or the former Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Croatia (72 years), and that is not all the pool.

The Chilean bet has a current that is not new but now goes for all. Simply, because it touches, they say the drivers of the campaign, with which group of leaders from around the world works so that the replacement of Guterres is a woman. There were already candidates in the past, of course, before Ban Ki-Moon or Kofi Annan, but in 2025 it is sought that they have chosen, not just aspiring.

These 75 women, grouped in the GWL Voices organization, have been present at the 69th Commission for the Statute of Women (CSW), which was held in March in New York and, in parallel, (you have it complete at the end of this news) in which they verify how complicated women have grow without running into any roof in international institutions and reflect on what their presence in this type of position can contribute.

“The role of a pioneer woman is not simple: your performance must be far superior to that of your male counterparts, and you are perfectly aware that not only your personal career is at stake, but the expectations of other women who would like to follow your steps,” a year before dying, British diplomat Margaret Joan Anstee, who was the first woman to occupy the position of attached general secretary of the United Nations.

In a world in crisis, “what person does the ability to gather, to gather, to be a friendly componedor neutral in the most delicate issues? A woman (would represent) a change of style, a change of leadership, with an agenda of clear reforms, “María Fernanda Espinosa asks in this 2025. It is an idea that underlies the entire dossier: if women are more than 50% of the planetary population, they represent with guarantees and weight General Secretary, but will help introduce an approach to the issues that can help solve them, collective, social, with capacity for listening and empathy.

“Our campaign is for a woman, we do not campaign for any particular candidate. Looking only to Latin America there are hundreds of options,” he defended Efe Espinosa, without citing any name or inquite in an election in which his name sounds equally. One thing these women propose is that, just as there is a territorial rotation when choosing the position (Annan was Ghanés, African; Moon, South Korean, Asian; and Guterres, Portuguese, European), there is a gender one. Espinosa cites Latin America because it is fair is one of the territories where the new position can fall within two years.

Absolutely infrareprenemed

GWL Voices has exposed New York a historical study of 54 UN structures and others from multilateral organizations (such as international banking or courts of justice) and their conclusions are terrible: since 1945, women have only directed them 13 % of occasions.

Of the 193 Member States, 73 were never represented before the UN by an ambassador and 64 have been only once. Thus, only 7% of the more than 2,800 permanent representatives who have served as ambassadors before the United Nations since 1947 have been women. The changes are recent: 52 years had to pass (until 1999) so that the number of ambassadors in the UN exceeds 5% of the total. In 2024, just 21 % of ambassadors were women.

“Ambassadors before the UN are the visible face and voice of a nation, responsible for defending their values ​​and priorities and negotiating their positions in international treaties. However, despite the broad support for gender parity, most countries almost never name women for this position,” denounces the dossier.

And the General Assembly has celebrated up to 20 times its session, the traditional September, without a single woman among its participants. Two decades without a single representative of half humanity. She has chosen a woman as president on up to four times during the course of eight decades (representatives of India, Liberia, Baharéin and Ecuador).

“It should be remembered that he explicitly recognizes gender equality in leadership positions,” says the report with a tone that sounds tired. “Since its foundation, the UN has shown two parallel and contradictory realities: the one that reflects in its letter and that practiced by the individuals chosen by governments to represent them in New York,” he adds.

The study observed “promising advances” in the percentage of women in their higher management teams and in those of these institutions, but there is a stagnation in their boards (which are also designated by member governments). The candidacies for the General Secretariat, specifically, do not depend on people, but on the Member States, who are the ones who present their applicants in the long election process that must go through the Security Council and overcome the eventual vetoes.

“14 costumes and a skirt”

In the September Assembly, Member States have to launch “the most important election,” that of the Secretariat. “The fact that no woman has been appointed general secretary in history is the most obvious proof of the legacy of gender exclusion that has characterized leadership in the UN for eight decades. In 2026, the UN will celebrate its 80th anniversary and will choose its tenth secretary. The UN is proud of the fact that the previous general secretaries have come from all its regional groups except one, which, It is an impressive achievement at the level of justice and balance in terms of geographical representation.

Until now, Gwl Voices claims to have the favorable opinion of 81 countries that Guterres’s relief is a woman (the Spanish president, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, has defended that change publicly), but that must translate into specific names of candidates. There will be no lack of those who want to try, seen the intense movement so that, once and for all, things change.

The text recalls a very clarifying anecdote of the moment in which the American, who was a secretary of state (the first woman to occupy that position, in the Democratic government of Bill Clinton), became an ambassador to the UN. It was the year 1993. The veteran diplomatic, finally, sat in the Security Council, where the United Nations power marrow is, and only saw “14 costumes and a skirt”, yours. He always fought in a world of men. “Albright decided to create a network with other permanent representatives and, as stated in his memoirs, which finally ended up titling he soon realized that this re fit perfectly around a dining table, since only Canada, Jamaica, Liechtenstein, the Philippines and Kazakhstan had ambassadors. “

Espinosa believes that the fight for a greater space for equity in the UN is more than a luxury of rich countries, since it transcends political differences, and does not believe that the usual fractures between The rich north and the global south They are reflected in those efforts by equity. In addition, he stressed that a woman comes from where she comes from, she will always have her level of demand higher: “It is almost a rule that we are asked for more, there is a greater scrutiny of society about us. The world of women in politics and in the spaces of decision -making is not easy,” he deepens.

As its report says, “the most powerful way to demonstrate both a revitalization and the possibilities of a fresh and constructive approach is to empower 50% of humanity that has been excluded from the cusp of these organizations throughout history.” That is another of the keys to the document and work of the organization: insist, without a clipper, in which in equal conditions, the work of women in this type of entities adds a different way of seeing the world.

They do not fall into topics (that of maternal sensitivity), but speak of the fact that, in the middle of the “extraordinary tension” of the current world, the one that makes some disdain this feminist struggle for not being a priority, a less testosteronic management and a powerful leadership can be had, unattended so far. They are “more convinced than ever that the election of a general secretary could trigger a deeper revitalization of this important institution and reflect the hopes of generations of younger men and women who demand justice and cooperation in a polarized world.” That the position is in the hands of good connoisseurs of the system, with experience, strong and determined. And women, an extra that is not when so much injustice of decades is dragged.

The message is clear: there should be no dilemma in the next election. There can be no more excuse. It is the time of common sense and women, they understand. Organizations have to look like the societies they represent and the United Nations, today, do not. From his hand, he will really enter the 21st century.