Abdulla Shahid, Maldivian Foreign Minister and the President of the UN General Assembly, stated during the 66th session that took place on Monday that the next UN secretary-general should be a woman.
In the course of this session, Shahid acclaimed that in the last 76 sessions, only four women had been chosen and in addition to that, no woman has ever been elected as a secretary-general. Shahid expressed that this needs to be rectified.
Moreover, he stated that the UN is ineffective to implement the ‘gold standards’ across the globe as regards to gender equality and women’s empowerment if they are incapable of doing so “at home”.
For the 66th session, with the primary theme being “empowering women and girls in the context of climate and disaster risk reduction” and the review theme being “women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work,” Shahid acknowledged their founding role in promoting women’s rights, composing international standards on gender equality, and in additionally discourse women’s issues at a global perspective.
Furthermore, Shahid assured that these unfair societal norms and gender stereotypes will be challenged. And he moved on to state that the work of young female climate activists has supported the global environmental movement.
