DUBAI: Political will is crucial for bridging the global gender gap and empowering women financially against pressing challenges, a panel of experts told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
Panelists acknowledged some progress in advancing female political representation, as 15.5 percent of heads of state around the world have been women over the past decade.
However, they called for more concerted efforts to bridge the gender gap in political power. According to WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report, it will take 168 years to reach gender parity, but if every economy had a gender-balanced Cabinet, global gender parity could be within reach in 54 years.
Alicia Barcena Ibarra, Mexico’s secretary of environment and natural resources, stressed that building women’s economic autonomy was key to advancing their political representation.
“When women have economic autonomy, it’s easier for them to participate on many fronts because when they are dependent on economic terms, that’s when they are vulnerable to corruption, dependency and abuse,” Ibarra said.
In Mexico, the first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was elected in October last year in a historic moment for the country. Under law, Congress now has to include 50 percent women, paving the way for the the first woman to lead the country’s Supreme Court, as well as the first female governor of the central bank.
While these strides on the political level have reflected positively on women’s social participation and inspired a young generation of Mexicans, Ibarra said that it revealed the pressure on women to perform.
“[The new president] has to do double the work because it’s not naturally accepted to have a female in the highest level of power, so she has to do even better than than men in many fronts to demonstrate that it's possible.”
Complementing her sentiments, Francois Valerian, chair of Transparency International, said that the lack of financial resources for women compared to men made females more vulnerable to abuses of power, state corruption and climate change.
“Pakistan’s floods, for example, left many women and children in need to receive aid,” said Valerian, calling for parity in political power to solve these issues at the community level.
Even during elections, women needed more financial resources for their campaigns “because they have less money, they are outsiders, and need to convince people they are to be trusted. Also, they need money for their safety in many countries,” Valerian said, as he urged governments to empower women to run for election through dedicating funds for this.
Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, minister of state and minister of foreign affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, stressed that gender parity was necessary in all sectors to advance peacemaking and peacebuilding initiatives. So far, women’s inclusion had been achieved at the grassroot level.
She said that women needed to be included in decision-making and negotiating peace at the top level to ensure female concerns were well represented.
“There’s a need to think about how do we make sure that this is a cross-cutting approach and not just women at the local level who then have to own what is decided at the top level,” Wagner said.
At the UN General Assembly last year, only 19 speakers were women, including five heads of state and three heads of government, according to UN figures.
Wagner said that the starting point should be international organizations reflecting the progress on gender equality, and called for a female UN secretary-general.
“I think all our eyes are shifting toward Latin America because of the geographic rotation, with a lot of expectations that a continent that has distinguished itself with so many women that have assumed positions of leadership will also help us achieve that important milestone,” she said.
In peacemaking, the role of both genders was necessary for progress. “We don’t want only women or only men. We need both because they have complementary visions,” Mexico’s Ibarra said.
