Carol Bellamy, the outgoing head of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), has bemoaned the lack of women in top U.N. posts. The organization that preaches gender equality to national governments needs some "affirmative action" to put women in senior positions, she said, adding that other organizations such as the World Bank and the U.N. Development Program should also look to female chief executives.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan agreed. Official figures cited in a news report earlier this month showed that only 9 of the 27 jobs as a U.N. agency or program head as well as 12 of the 54 senior posts in the U.N. Secretariat in New York are held by women. It is good to see a prominent women leader make a public issue of it.
All sectors of global society could do with better gender representation. But few people realize that the plight of Asians in senior positions is proportionately even worse than that of women. So where are the prominent Asian leaders publicly demanding attention to this issue?