PANEL DISCUSSION ON
"INSTITUTIONS AND CHANGE: DO WOMEN
MAKE A DIFFERENCE?"
STATEMENT BY THE NEW ZEALAND PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE
MR DON MACKAY
WEDNESDAY 12 MARCH 2003
The Beijing Platform of Action established the consensus that women
should play an equal part in decision-making, not just in our institutions of
government but also in the United Nations.
We have been slow, however, to turn that consensus into action; the
Beijing Platform of Action established a goal of equal representation of women
in all levels of the secretariat by the year 2000. I am not, therefore, going to address the question "can
women make a difference" directly.
I think we have gone beyond questioning whether women can make a difference. Three years after the expiration of the
Beijing target, we are still struggling to put those agreements into practice;
not only did we fail to meet that target, we are not even close to it. It is, therefore, the question of
implementation that I want to focus on.
New Zealand has long been committed to gender equality, and has been
since we became the first nation to bring in universal adult suffrage in
1893. Today women hold top jobs in New
Zealand. Our Head of State is a woman,
as is her representative in New Zealand, the Governor-General. Our Prime Minister, the Attorney-General,
the Chief Justice, and the Chief Human Rights Commissioner are all women. And it's not just the Government; a woman
heads Telecom NZ, one of our largest public companies.
But that success at the top level does not translate all the way
down. In our Parliament, women make up
only 28% of Members of Parliament (34 out of 120), and roughly a third of
cabinet ministers (8 out of 24). Women
are still under-represented in the judiciary and at senior levels in the public
service, where women only make up a third of all positions. We also have some way to go on the issue of
pay equity. In the public service,
average salaries for women are still 10%-17% lower than they are for men.
This is not to say that there has not been progress. The participation of women in our political
institutions has been steadily increasing over the years. We are committed to continuing that
progress, along with progress in increasing the participation by Maori and
ethnic minorities. The Government is
committed to ensuring that our political institutions, and our government
departments, reflect the diversity in New Zealand society. That comes from a recognition that diversity
strengthens the decision making process.
As I said earlier, we have long accepted that idea, and there is no
question in New Zealand that women's perspectives make a valuable contribution.
A recent feature on women in a NZ daily newspaper argued that New
Zealand's record on these issues read like a high school report card: "Has made significant advances. Doing well compared with peers but potential
still not realised. Will have to work
hard not to rest on laurels." The
NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is perhaps a good example. The Ministry has set a target of 50%
representation of women at all levels by 2005.
At present women make up nearly half of the employees in the Ministry, and
in the last two recruitment rounds women made up more than 60% of new recruits. But women hold only 27 out of 76 of the
senior positions in the Ministry, and head only 9 out of 47 diplomatic posts
overseas. I use this example because it
seems to be analogous to the experience in the UN; while progress is being made
in recruiting more women, the Organisation is struggling to make any
significant inroads at senior levels.
It is clear, therefore, that recruitment is only one part of the
issue. Equal recruitment of women alone
is not enough to ensure that women are able to be retained and take part in all
levels of an organisation. The debate
on the participation of women in institutions must also consider work
practices. If greater proportions of
women than men leave an organisation due to discrimination, attitudinal
problems, inflexible work practices, or lack of career development
opportunities, the 50/50 target at all levels will never be met. That is why the General Assembly asked, in
this year's resolution on the status of women in the UN system, for analysis of
these issues in the next report. We
will be looking forward to that analysis, because the only way to ensure that
there are plenty of women at all levels of the Secretariat, including in
leadership roles, is to ensure that the Organisation's work culture promotes
women's involvement at all levels.
The New Zealand government recognises that the need to balance work,
family, and community commitments is a rock bottom fundamental for women. Last year the State Services Commission
released the results of its survey of Career Progression and Development in the
New Zealand Civil Service. The survey
explored public servants' perceptions of the public service work environment
and their career progression opportunities.
It analysed the gender differences in the responses to the survey, and
found that many of those differences related to factors affecting employees'
ability to balance work and other commitments.
The need for "real choices" about balancing work and family was
one of the issues most frequently mentioned to the authors of those
studies. Although not affecting women
exclusively, these factors do tend to impact more on women than on men. An important finding that will resonate in the
UN context was that some cultural groups placed higher importance than others
to the work/life balance.
A key part of the issue is that while we have worked hard to encourage
women's participation in public life and in employment, our societies still
expect women, on top of their work lives, to care for children and their
families and do much of the community's unpaid work. Efforts to enable employees to achieve a better balance in their
lives between work and their lives with their families and communities is
essential to encouraging women to stay in organisations.
Some of the efforts that New Zealand has made at a governmental level
include paid parental leave, introducing a work/life balance project in the
Department of Labour, improving access to affordable childcare for working
parents, and taking a fresh look at pay equity. But the government can only do so much. Employers and employees must reach their own solutions on
flexible work practices depending on their circumstances.
In the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, we have found
that our biggest retention problem for women was that they did not return after
leaving work to have children. We now
allow a longer period of unpaid parental leave (two years instead of one) and
we are offering part time work to staff that wish to return after having children,
but do not want to return to full time work right away. Because of this, we are formulating part
time guidelines and starting a discussion paper on ways to improve the use of
part time staff, looking outside the square for other options.
In the UN, we applaud the efforts that have been made so far to trial
flexible work practices, and the decision to introduce them system wide. We would encourage each departmental head to
strive to apply them faithfully. Not
only does telecommuting, job sharing and compressed work time reflect modern
management practices, but it gives staff the flexibility to spend an extra day
every fortnight with their children, dealing with schools, running errands or
simply getting more exercise.
But efforts by the UN management to improve the level of women in the
Secretariat cannot be made alone; and it's not just the gender balance in the
Secretariat that we need to look at. All member states need to keep an eye on
gender balance when nominating candidates to UN expert bodies. (And not just in terms of increasing women -
the CEDAW Committee could do with a few more men!)
Member states agreed in the Beijing Platform of Action to aim at a
gender balance in the lists of national candidates nominated for election or
appointment to UN bodies, agencies or autonomous bodies. In order to meet this commitment member
states need to present qualified female candidates. One way of doing so would be to establish national databases of
qualified female candidates.
Domestically the New Zealand Ministry of Women's Affairs has established
a Nominations Service to promote the nomination of qualified women to decision
making bodies such as Crown company boards.
The nominations service holds information on nearly 2000 qualified women
available to take up statutory appointments, and made over 1000 nominations for
such appointments in the last financial year.
That sort of effort needs to be paralleled by all of us at the
international level. The pool of women
nominees must be given a higher profile by member states when nominating
candidates for positions as Special Rapporteurs, on expert bodies, or as
special representatives of the Secretary General. Member states could promote the use of databases in the
community, and assist potential female nominees with information, support,
training, and mentoring to increase the number of women making themselves
available for appointment.