by Negash Teklu
Photos: angela7dreams via FlickrWe have a critical opportunity right now to make sure
the next U.N. climate chief will serve the needs of the global community of
women, and we need to seize it.
With Yvo de Boer stepping down as executive secretary
of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, U.N. Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon will be appointing a replacement.
The role of the executive secretary is critical to achieving a fair,
ambitious, and binding climate agreement, and a strong successor to de Boer is
absolutely essential for Cancun and beyond.
What will make for a strong UNFCCC executive secretary?
The Climate Action Network has issued
a letter articulating important qualifications, which include political
leadership, experience with negotiations, commitment to civil society, and a
thorough understanding of the challenges of development in the Global South.
As leaders of organizations working at the forefront
of environmental and women’s issues in the Global South, we’d like to add
another qualification to that list: an understanding of the full range of
gender issues, including access to reproductive health and family planning.
Women make up half of the world’s population and 70
percent of the world’s poor, produce up to 80 percent of agricultural products
in places like sub-Saharan Africa, and stand to face the brunt of climate
change.
Three female candidates are rumored to be under consideration: Maria Fernanda
Espinoza from Ecuador, Elizabeth
Thompson from Barbados, and Christiana
Figueres from Costa Rica. These women occupy distinct and noteworthy
positions within the larger environmental and climate diplomatic circles. Espinoza has held the post of minister for foreign affairs, and
is the current Ecuadorian representative to the U.N. Thompson has a
well-known reputation for excellence in diplomacy, having led the Barbados
governmental delegation to Kyoto. Figueres
is a formidable negotiator on climate change and an expert on carbon
markets.
Certainly we all know from the U.S. experience with
Sarah Palin that being a woman does not a feminist make. On the other hand,
ensuring gender balance, tracking the number of female elected officials, and actively
engaging women at all levels of policy making are all standard and
well-accepted means of measuring an institution’s ability to bring a balanced perspective
to its deliberations. Do we wish we lived in world free of such measures and
quotas? Perhaps, but the reality is that marginalized perspectives tend to be,
well, just that-marginalized-so our advocacy on this front is not yet finished
business.
With the UNFCCC soon to enter its third decade, it is long overdue for
Ban Ki-moon to live up to his own challenge to world governments to give a “greater say to
women in addressing the climate challenge.” In selecting a leader who will be capable of
crafting an effective and fair international agreement, the secretary-general
must seek a candidate with a track record demonstrating a nuanced understanding
of the gendered aspects of climate change challenges and solutions. It is time that the U.N. pay more than lip
service to the notion that women
are the agents of change.
——————-
Suzanne Ehlers
is the interim president of Population
Action International.
Negash Teklu is executive
director of Ethiopia’s Consortium
for Integration of Population, Health, and Environment.
Rosemarie
Muganda-Onyando is the director of the Centre for the Study of
Adolescence in Kenya.
Wasim Zaman is the executive director of International Council on Management of
Population Programme, Selangor, Malaysia.
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