Empowerment of Women is Organization’s Most Important Objective, Secretary-General Says in Message for International Day

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message for International Women’s Day, aired today:

We live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture.  And this is true in Governments, public administrations, the private sector, but also in international organizations like the United Nations.

And so, the central question for gender equality is a question of power.  And that is why the empowerment of women is our most important objective.

To make that empowerment [a] reality in the United Nations, I made parity our central reform objective.  We have already reached parity in the Senior Management Group, the top level of the administration of the United Nations.  And we will soon reach it at the level of the country leaders of the United Nations.

But, our aim is to have parity across the board in the whole of the United Nations and this will be a key instrument for us to be able to fight sexual exploitation and abuse with zero tolerance, to fight sexual harassment and to make sure that we create an Organization in which women and men can work together in full equality and contribute to a world in which women and men can also be in full equality.