Resident Coordinator's Opening Speech at “Women at the Table: Insights from Lebanese Women in Politics” Launching Event

Excellencies,

Distinguished participants,

Colleagues,

Good afternoon,

Thank you for joining us today and thanks to UN Women and ESCWA for convening this important event.  

It’s an enormous pleasure to be back in Lebanon and to be part of the first public meeting celebrating women’s leadership.

We’re here to launch a report, but more importantly, we’re here to celebrate a group of women who mark many firsts in this country… Women who are leading the way in breaking the glass ceiling.

Included among our speakers are the first female Minister of Finance; the first female Minister of Interior in the Arab region; the first woman to be elected to represent her party; the first woman to be elected as an independent Member of the Parliament (MP); the first woman to be pregnant while holding a cabinet position; and the first woman to be a Secretary-General of a party represented in Parliament.

With their credibility and tenacity, they were able to overcome an incredible barrier to their entry into politics – their gender – which has, unfortunately, held back so many women in Lebanon and across the world from elected and appointed political positions.

This isn’t a determent to only those women, but to all of us. And the reason for that doesn’t lie in abstract notions of fairness, equity, and equality or unsubstantiated claims that women are kinder, less corrupt, fairer, or more altruistic than men.

Women’s participation in political life matters because it is necessary for democracies, like Lebanon, to emerge and function properly.

This is so because:

First, the more closely a government represents society as a whole, the more stable and just its policies are likely to be.

And second, a mixed-gender Cabinet or Parliament tends to address more and better the concerns that apply disproportionately to women. In Lebanon, those issues have been mostly related to education, healthcare, justice, and reforming the current political structure, which all constitute priorities that are instrumental for the reform agenda.

I’m not saying that women’s political participation is the factor that will create the change the country desperately needs, but it is one of a set of ‘critical’ factors that are required to spur change in the country as well as globally.

But these are things we’ve heard before that many of us, at least those present with us in this room, can agree on.  The question is what can we do to create the change we all know is so urgently needed?

I don’t profess to know the answers. I hope our panel today will share some ideas that we can take back with us and move forward with actions.

But certainly, ensuring women’s rights and gender equality is not an afterthought, something that would be “nice to have”. Rather, it is a must to generate traction. And we all have a role to play in that – in ensuring that whether we’re talking about the economy, the climate, governance, peace, and security, we are elevating women’s voices, and we are calling for gender equality in these discussions.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Lebanon has been a trailblazer on the issue of women’s rights and gender equality – granting women the right to vote and run for elections in 1952 and hitting parity on education and health markers decades before many countries in the world. Lebanon also has more women across the office level of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) than most other UN member states. And this is a milestone to be hailed!

Moreover, the Lebanese government has made important commitments to advance women’s rights. In calling for women’s rights, we are not asking for a new agenda, but for an existing one to be honored where hard-won gains of women’s rights are protected, and more investments in lifelong learning, healthcare, decent jobs, and social protection for women and girls are stimulated. An electoral gender quota remains crucial and fundamental as a temporary measure to secure women’s political representation.

The great expertise and leadership of women are needed, and Lebanon cannot afford to miss it!

Distinguished participants,

Gender equality and women’s rights must be at the heart of a renewed social contract that is fit for today’s Lebanon. And in my capacity, as the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, representing all my colleagues present today, I look forward to supporting our national partners to lead efforts that would ensure this is done in the best way possible.

Thank you.