Welcome to The Gender Diplomat 🇺🇦

As the concept of equality is dragged down by the far right, I believe that we are at a turning point and that we need more data, more facts and more public opinion on the subject. I'm concerned that there is a growing fatigue with the concept and that equality has literally become synonymous with adding women to groups of men and hoping that everything will work out and mysteriously resolve their subjugated status. It has also become synonymous with making workplaces more inclusive, forgetting the ecosystem outside the office in which women live around the world (their education, their socioeconomic background, their public and political leadership, etc.). So we need better arguments (in fact, we need arguments based on data) to make the case for equality and to show how inequality harms societies around the world, and to accelerate progress.

That's why this is definitely my most recommended read of the month on this topic: the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2024, which tells us that the global gender gap score in 2024 for all 146 countries included in this edition is a closed 68.5 per cent (i.e. it will take 134 years to reach full parity). That’s *FIVE* generations beyond the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target. It's not such good news as we're halfway to the official 2030 SDGs finish line.

The World Economic Forum makes the case for women’s political participation

The WEF report on parity between men and women was published in June and presents a discouraging estimate: an equitable and equal world is currently five generations away. Only in the distant year 2158, if this calculation is unchanged, will women finally enjoy equal status with men in four areas: economic participation and opportunities; educational attainment; health and survival; and political leadership. But can we afford to wait another 134 years?

➡️ For the sake of transparency, I declare myself an avid and nonconformist idealist, but I recognise right away that there are no miracles. The report indicates that we have currently closed 68.5 per cent of the gender gap in a total of 146 countries, but there are still significant gaps in several areas, of which I would highlight the dimension of power and political leadership (of the four areas mentioned above, it is the one that has made the least progress to date). Although a woman in a position of power is not synonymous with the adoption of policies that improve her status, we see slow progress now with Kaja Kallas and Von der Leyen in the EU trio, or with the new Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum; but we still need both policies for the protection of human rights and the removal of barriers to their full public participation. According to the report "Representation Matters: Women Political Leaders", published by the WPL, at international level, in 2023 women held around a quarter of parliamentary seats and ministerial positions and represented less than 10 per cent of heads of state. Where there is a higher rate of women's political representation, there is also more legal equality and economic opportunities, the same study says. In 2024, with so many elections taking place around the world, we have a good opportunity to improve these figures.

➡️ In the last five years, the international community has seen a stagnation and, in some cases, an actual regression of human rights in the COVID-19 pandemic, but also in sexual and reproductive health and rights, in violence that now also has a digital and AI aspect, and in global health, climate and humanitarian crises, recently highlighted in Ukraine and Gaza, but also in regions with less European media coverage, such as the African continent. As a result, the risks of violence have increased dramatically, economic opportunities have deteriorated in an insecure world, warnings of the climate emergency have accelerated, as we have seen in Tuvalu and Brazil, for example, and if women already had a lower status, they are now significantly more vulnerable. It has never been more urgent to ensure that everyone's starting point in life is as equal as possible, even though the outlook remains bleak.

➡️ In 2024, we are exactly halfway to the final target of the SDGs, a UN agenda that aims to solve 17 of the world's main problems by 2030. However, it is precisely in Goal 5 - gender equality - that not only has the least progress been made in general, but is also the one most lacking in data for analysis. UN Women, one of the agencies responsible for this issue, notes that only 47 per cent of the data needed to monitor progress on SDG 5 is currently available, which makes the possibility of equality effectively impossible. I will continue to be idealistic and ideally armed with more data, towards the equitable year of 2158.

🌎 Growing in and out of your 9 to 5

GROWTH

• The EU Youth Empowerment Fund @ DG INTPA

• The case for progressive realism by David Lammy @ Foreign Affairs

• 10-11 July NATO Public Forum @ NATO

• The Double-Edged Sword of Celebrity Activism @ Carnegie Europe

• The Constant War On The Bodies Of Women And Girls Across All Conflicts @ FORBES

• Call for EU Youth Stakeholders Group @ European Commission

JOBS

• Senior policy advisor, environment @ AmCham EU

• Deputy director @ PICUM

• Senior advisor (gender and human rights) @ WHO

• Gender equality traineeship @ OECD Development Centre

• GBV program and coordination advisor @ UNFPA

• Senior consultant (gender equality policy) @ ICF

• EU advocacy assistant @ CARE International

• Research and Partnerships Manager @ Equality Institute

• Policy associate Great Lakes @ SFCG Brussels

• Programme management specialist @ UNOPS

• Head of communications and events @ EPC

• Junior resources management officer @ ICMPD

• MEL officer @ European Partnership for Democracy

• Policy trainee (german speaking) @ EP Greens/EFA

• Communications traineeship @ EED

• Grant-making traineeship (Eastern partnership) @ EED

• Finance traineeship @ EED

• Digital fundraising consultant @ UN Women

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and see you next week 👩🏻‍💻