Without the full participation and leadership of women, “we have no hope” of realizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the President of the United Nations General Assembly told gender equality leaders on Monday.
Today's top stories include: boosting profits at work by hiring more women leaders; saving biodiversity to beat climate change; General Assembly condemns UK over Chagos Islands; just a month of funding left for Gaza; celebrating malaria-free Algeria and Argentina; and justice experts dicuss how best to fight hate crime.
Businesses perform better – sometimes by as much as 20 per cent – when they employ more women in top positions, UN labour experts said on Wednesday, warning nonetheless that most still pay lip-service to the idea of gender equality in the boardroom.
“I think it's almost a joke that it will take the world so long to create women empowerment, particularly as we know that there’s an economic upside in empowering women in the range of $28 trillion.”
A South African teenager was at the UN recently to raise her voice for children everywhere, particularly on the issues of education, child labour and gender inequality.
Lathitha Beyile from Soweto read a manifesto she had written which was inspired by children in her country.
Extoling the benefits of women’s economic empowerment, both for economies as well as societies as a whole, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today encouraged governments, the private sector, multilateral institutions and others to take measures to achieve the full and equal participation of women in the economy.
The Under-Secretary-General of the newly created United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office believes that “geographical balance and gender equality are pre-requisites for the success of the unit”.
