Gender Parity ‘Non-Negotiable’, Secretary-General Tells Group of Friends

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the Group of Friends on Gender Parity, in New York today:

I am very pleased to join you today and with the permission of the distinguished Ministers for Social Development of Qatar and for Education of Rwanda.  I want to express my deep gratitude to Her Excellency Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif al-Thani, Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations, and His Excellency Ernest Rwamucyo, Permanent Representative of Rwanda to the United Nations, for what has been their remarkable leadership and their continued support and commitment to gender equality — at the United Nations and beyond.

The Group of Friends has been a driving force in our journey towards gender parity.  I look forward to our continued and strengthened partnership during this pivotal year — to celebrate hard-won achievements, confront persistent and emerging challenges, and most importantly, accelerate action to achieve gender equality.

2025 is meant to be a year of celebration:  25 years since the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security, and 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the fourth World Conference on Women — milestones which ignited global action.

But, the truth is, 2025 is also a year of reckoning.  Five years from 2030, we are far from delivering on the promises of the Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 5:  achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.

The environmental and climate crises are disproportionately affecting them, and women across the globe continue to endure the worst impacts of war while being excluded from most of the peace talks.

Political representation is also stagnating.  In 2024 — a year that saw a record number of elections worldwide — only five women were elected as Heads of State.  Worse, we are witnessing an aggressive backlash against gender equality — threatening hard-won progress on women’s human rights and fundamental freedoms.

We cannot afford to stand still.  We must push back against this pushback.  We must secure women’s full, equal and meaningful participation in all decision-making processes — including on peace and security and humanitarian action.  We must protect, support and amplify the voices of civil society and grass-roots organizations, who are on the front lines of defending women’s rights worldwide.

We must renew our commitment to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action under the Beijing+30 framework — and I call on everyone to accelerate its full and effective implementation.

Last September, Member States have adopted the Pact for the Future.  The Pact reaffirms that gender equality holds the key to unlock progress on the 2030 Agenda and sustainable development.

It calls for greater investment in the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals], expanding debt-relief measures and strengthened support from multilateral development banks so that Governments can invest in the programmes their people need — including education, training, job creation and social protections that foster gender equality.

And the Global Digital Compact calls for closing the gender digital divide, ensuring women and girls everywhere can access and benefit from the opportunities of a rapidly evolving global economy.

Gender equality is a thread that runs through the Pact, and I call on all Member States to spare no effort to implement its commitments.  This includes the revitalization of the Commission on the Status of Women to promote the full and effective implementation of the Platform for Action.

As we look to the challenges all around us, we must also look inside our Organization.  With four years left to reach my goal of a 50-50 balance across the UN system by 2028, I am proud of how far we’ve come.

With the support of so many of you today, we have seen historic breakthroughs since I launched the system-wide strategy on gender parity. In 2017, only five United Nations entities had reached parity.  Today, that number is 28 — a testament to our collective institutional efforts.

We are seeing an unprecedented number of women serving in the UN system.  We have achieved — and more importantly, maintained — gender parity among senior leadership and resident coordinators since 2020.  And for the first time in the UN’s history, we have also reached parity in the international professional categories.

Despite these significant strides, progress remains uneven – with critical obstacles along the way.  We still see concerning gaps at the P-5 and D-1 levels [and D-2 levels]. This threatens to undermine our future pipeline of senior leaders.

Progress has also been slow in non-Headquarters and field locations.  While we have sustained gender parity among Resident Coordinators, women make up only 14 per cent of [resident coordinators] at the Assistant Secretary-General level. And in a majority of peacekeeping operations, the share of women does not exceed 35 per cent.

We must nurture and promote talent everywhere — and at every level.  But, achieving gender parity is not about numbers alone.  Representation without transformation is not enough.  Lack of parity perpetuates power structures that go against gender equality.

Too many institutions, including our own, remain shaped by patriarchal systems of power that restrict women’s equal access to leadership, economic opportunities and legal protections.  If we want a UN that truly represents the people it serves, our organizational culture, policies and decision-making must continue to evolve.

The UN is committed to leading by example — ensuring a workplace built on the principles of dignity, equality and respect.  The field-specific enabling environment guidelines, the UN system-wide Knowledge Hub on Addressing Sexual Harassment and the UN system-wide Dashboard on Gender Parity are helping us steer organizational change.

And more than 650 UN Gender Focal Points across the entire UN system are working alongside leadership to dismantle barriers and build truly inclusive and supportive workplaces.  But, we must do more.

That’s why I launched the UN system-wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan, establishing a robust governance that ensures coordination across 43 UN entities and integrating reporting into existing accountability frameworks to raise the bar for gender mainstreaming.

A more gender-equal UN will be a more effective UN. One that serves all women and girls, champions political commitment, mobilizes investments, strengthens partnerships and ensures real accountability — and one that reflects the more equal world we want to shape.

Gender equality is more than an aspiration.  It is a human right and a fundamental requirement for breaking cycles of poverty, violence and inequality.  Advancing gender equality paves the way for a more just, peaceful and sustainable future for all.

The road will require bold leadership and collective action to break barriers, to safeguard women’s rights and freedoms and drive true, lasting transformation.  In this context, gender parity is non-negotiable.

We must serve — and deliver for — all women and girls.  So let us pursue our collective efforts, turn commitments into ambitious results and push forward, together.