The world finds itself at a crossroads as it ponders the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic that has had a disproportionate impact on women and girls.

That was among the key messages delivered at the official commemoration of International Women’s Day at the United Nations today under the theme: Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.

Members of states were urged to implement bold decision-making in the current climate that continued to erode the hard-won advances in women’s rights.

About 130 years, that’s the current projection to achieve gender equality in the highest positions of power as International Women’s Day provides a platform to press the case for building back better for a more gender-equal future.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka leads UNWOMEN as its Executive Director.

“We stand at a crossroads as we ponder the recovery from a pandemic that has had disproportionate impact on women and girls. We also face the challenge of under representation of women in key institutions, some of which will be responsible for the recovery. The recovery will not be adequate and inclusive if it does not include women in decisions that affect their lives.”


Mlambo-Ngcuka pointed to next week’s Commission on Status of Women as a tool through which to call for greater representation of women in all decision-making bodies, particularly national COVID-19 task forces that are dominated by men despite the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women and girls.

“We only have 13% of parliaments that are gender equal. 119 countries have never had a women leaders. We also have 14 gender-equal cabinets in the world. These are all important bodies that will be making decisions about the future of the world and will be guiding this recovery. We therefore have a responsibility to call out on the under-representation of women.”

The UN Chief Antonio Guterres– who has presided over the achievement of gender parity within UN leadership for the first time in the history of the organisation – called gender equality a question of power.

“Equal power will not happen by itself. This is still a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture. We need to work together with vision and determination to make equality happen. I am proud that we have achieved gender parity in UN leadership posts for the first time in history. We must transform social norms. We must put in place laws and policies to support women in leadership, including special measures and quotas with ambitious targets, and do far more to appoint women to high-level positions. We must tackle violence against women both online and offline so that women’s voices are no longer silenced, especially in public life.”

With the UN last year embarking on a decade of action to speed up implementation towards the Sustainable Development Goals, the pandemic provides an opportunity to course correct. Listen to Volkan Bozkir – President of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly.

“On this International Women’s Day, I call on all Member States to guarantee women what I think of as the ‘The Five Ps’: Personal autonomy; Equal Participation in decision-making and politics; Gender-responsive Policies; Equal Pay and access to the labour market; An end to impunity for Perpetrators of gender-based violence.”

A clear message that placing women at the centre of the recovery will be key to its inclusivity and therefore make it that much more sustainable.