In late September, the UN General Assembly convened to talk about a myriad of issues, including climate change, COVID-19, and global cooperation. However, various outlets were also quick to point out the clear lack of female leadership among the scheduled speakers. All 52 speakers on the first day of the UNGA were men, and only 11 out of 196 across the entire event were women. As Fortune magazine succinctly stated, it was the “ultimate manel”. Particularly striking in a year when female leadership has shone in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic in stark contrast to some of their more visible male counterparts. And even more recently, on 29 September, details were released about the extent of sexual exploitation in the aid sector’s Ebola response in the Congo, with more than one UN agency implicated by name (along with several INGOs). These very public displays of the UN’s equality failings may simply be a reflection of its own internal dynamics.  

It is time that the UN, especially the largest and most powerful agencies within the United Nations, spoke up publicly about continued discrimination within its own ranks. The last several months have seen a flurry of activity online trying to openly address issues of inequality and discrimination in the humanitarian and aid sector generally. These conversations have been led by women and people of colour within the sector, but despite public statements from several aid agencies, a large-scale meaningful response from those who hold considerable power within the sector is still lacking. While voices have called out major INGOs like MSF by name, UN agencies with many of the largest budgets are often themselves perpetrators of institutional racism and gender discrimination. Yet the UN has remained largely silent on the issues of anti-racism and decolonising the humanitarian sector. Additionally, it has yet to take a truly meaningful stance on gender discrimination in staffing, even within those agencies specifically charged with promoting anti-discrimination and equality efforts worldwide. It is time we all hold them accountable to that silence.  

INTERNAL RESISTANCE TO TOUGH CONVERSATIONS 

Perhaps the reason for this silence is tied to the fact that the UN has faced its own difficulties and internal resistance to implementing anti-racist and diversity initiatives. Take for example the internal backlash to the UN’s own gender parity policy. Or maybe it is due to the fact that the UN, especially its larger agencies, has faced very public criticism for sexual exploitation and abuse of power in several different high-profile United Nations operations in the past few years, with lower-level internal complaints often going unanswered. If the backlash to the roll-out of the new gender policy is any indication, any larger anti-racism efforts will be met (or are already being met) with equal levels of resistance from a largely entrenched white male hierarchy within the system. For those of us who have worked within the system, especially for women of colour, this internal resistance is not shocking, but rather the predictable reaction of managers in positions of power with an interest in maintaining a status quo built on white male supremacy. As a recent commentator writing for The New Humanitarian put it:

There is no shortage of critiques about international development as a neocolonial enterprise. So it is alarming that international development, as an industry, is still not taking a leading role in demonstrating practical and moral-driven organisational strategies to dismantle structural inequalities and to address its role in reinforcing them.

UNNOTICED, EVERYDAY BARRIERS

Often the conversations about diverse senior leadership are reduced to some iteration of the argument that “there are no qualified individuals with diverse backgrounds in the candidate pool at this level,” but little has been done to address the problem of poor retention of diverse staff at more junior levels. If we move past outdated excuses (such as assuming that the only reason women leave is to raise children), we might recognise that there are inherent biases built-in all across UN hiring structures, including requirements listed on Terms of References for entry level and middle management jobs; which types of degrees or educational training programs are considered more valuable than others; the types of questions asked in interviews; the people comprising the interview panel; not to mention the informal networking that takes places at dinners or drinking parties where only friends are invited. These are all examples of ingrained institutional obstacles at every level that prevent the UN from developing the diverse and equity-driven workforce it claims to aspire to. 

Those who find themselves on the outside of these power structures are in some cases given poorer reviews of their work, even if their colleagues view them to be highly competent. In the humanitarian sector generally, people of colour and women in many instances feel that white or male colleagues have received credit for their work or have been told that they need to do “more”. In the opinion of the author, and based on personal experience, the UN is no different. A former UN colleague (local field staff) confided to me that, when asking for a title and salary promotion on a project she was already leading (while at a lower pay grade), her white, male, European international staff manager told her that she was to blame because she had not done enough to make herself or her work noticeable to management at more senior levels.  There are many more similar stories within the networks of current and former UN staff. 

Many user comments in online humanitarian and international aid forums caution against using the UN’s internal mechanisms to lodge complaints, often because the only tangible results that many diverse staff have seen are whistle-blowers having their own careers sidelined, even ones with considerable privilege. Yet, there are some examples of attempts at internal accountability.  The UN Secretariat has a gender parity dashboardthat visualises proportions of female staff at every level across many UN agencies (with some notable agencies still missing). UN Women has also periodically put out a gender report for UN agencies. However, similar data on racial or ethnic demographics in UN hiring are even harder to find.

THE ”DATA” EXCUSE 

There are several often-cited excuses for not addressing issues of diversity: that emergencies around the world require our attention more than internal tension from “a few” discontented staff, that addressing such issues would draw bad publicity at a time when the sector’s funding streams are under attack, or that there simply is not enough data to substantiate widespread claims of discrimination. Yet each UN agency has large databases that house the data of every person they have hired: start dates, dates of separation, age, ethnicity, nationality, education, type of contract, length of tenure, etc. They have the capacity to analyse this data to see how long a woman versus a man has to work at a particular grade level before being promoted, how long someone from one background versus another has to work on temporary contracts or as an affiliate before earning a fixed-term contract, and what the profile is of those who are constantly strung along on temporary contracts without any real opportunity for advancement.  The fact that many within the ranks of senior management of UN agencies continue to claim that not enough data exists to understand these dynamics is simply a reflection of their unwillingness to hold themselves accountable.

It is true that the UN, as a symbol of global multilateralism, is under attack from a rise of authoritarian leaders trying to discredit an era of global cooperation. At its best, the United Nations continues to embody the hope of global cooperation for the good of humanity. But if the UN does not address its own internal, structural, discrimination problems with a degree of brutal honesty, it will simply provide its critics with more reasons to question the UN’s very existence and continued relevance. 

Purvi Patel is a lawyer and public health professional with experience in humanitarian field operations, particularly in Latin America. Her current interests focus on the intersection of data analytics and humanitarian protection.