Giant step towards gender parity at global, regional, and national levels

By Dr Leslie Ramsammy,
Guyana’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN

Women’s rights took a giant step forward this past week with the culmination of two seminal events. First, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination (CEDAW) issued a recommendation for 50:50 parity measures for women’s participation in decision-making systems, shifting the Beijing 1995 emphasis from equity to parity (equality) for women in decision-making systems. Second, the Vatican (Papal) Summit 2024 came to an end in Rome with a call for permitting women to play a leadership role in the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church is a bastion for gender inequity, in centuries-old policy of limiting leadership roles for men only. The decision this weekend by the 2024 Vatican Summit is a genuine example of the glass ceiling being shattered. The decision is bold, even relatively transformative, but not nearly enough. The decision remained silent on permitting women to serve as priests, preserving this leadership role as an all-male affair. Even for women serving as deacons, the Summit deferred again to formalise women as deacons and insisted that further discernment is required. This is a stain on the Catholic Church as it chooses to remain “behind the times”, continuing to deny women their God-given rights.

The Summit was the end of a four-year consultation aimed at gauging the views of every church-going Catholic globally, and Pope Francis opened up the summit, which is usually a bishops’ conference to some lay people, including 60 women (16%) of 368 voting delegates. All of the summit delegates voted on each of 151 proposals. Although all proposals were passed by the required two-thirds majority, the most “no” votes were given to the proposal about women assuming more leadership roles in the Church, which has an all-male clergy. That the Summit approved women in leadership roles in the Catholic Church is still a giant leap forward, even if the Catholic Church remains a bastion of discrimination against women. It is a timid step, but a step forward, in stark contrast with the bold move by CEDAW at its 89th Session last week.
As Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Geneva, I attended the 89th session held at the Palais de Nations Building in Geneva, Switzerland, including its final meeting of the session which was held on October 25, 2024. CEDAW’s 89th session concluded with the launching of its landmark directive, General Recommendation 40 (GR40). The new CEDAW Recommendation marks a milestone event in the long struggle for women and gender equality.
Although the launching of GR40 was a low-key event, it adds one of the most consequential legal guidelines for women rights at the global, regional and national levels. The adoption of GR40 by CEDAW represents a paradigm shift in the struggle for women’s representation in decision-making systems at all levels. GR40 is a new legal framework, rooted in the binding standards of one of the widest ratified treaties.
The UN CEDAW was adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly. It is often described as an international bill of rights for women. Consisting of a preamble and 30 articles, it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination. Guyana ratified the Convention in July 1980.
One of the earliest successes in the struggle for women’s rights was the Beijing Platform of Action, 1995, which was adopted at the 4th Conference on Women in Beijing. The Beijing Platform of Action followed preparatory work done through the Women Conferences that preceded it – the Mexico Conference (1975); the Copenhagen Conference (1980) and the Nairobi Conference (1985). GR40 builds on the Beijing Platform of Action 1995. In 2025, the global family will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Platform. While the Beijing Platform 1995 sought to achieve equity, GR40 seeks to achieve parity.
Just as Guyana was present at the launching of GR40, Guyana was actively present in Beijing, with a team that was led by Mrs Janet Jagan.
The Beijing Platform mandated a minimum of 30% participation by women in national decision-making systems. While progress must be acknowledged, most countries have not yet achieved the 30% minimum participation of women in decision making systems as the Beijing Platform of Action urged. In fact, there are still 107 countries around the world which have never had a woman Head of State, including the United States of America. The US this year has an opportunity to change this dispensation when the people choose their President in a November 5th election. Nine Caricom countries have never had a woman Head of State. Six Caricom countries have had women as Heads of State – Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica and Haiti.
Even though most countries are yet to meet the Beijing 30% standard and even though most countries appear off-track to meet the SDGs for women, GR40 mandates equal participation and power through 50:50 gender parity permanent measures at both national and international levels, a clarion call for full equality, with gender parity across all decision-making arenas. The new guidance, emphasising the importance of 50-50 representation, seeks to ensure that women and girls have equal access to roles in public and private sectors, economic governance, and digital spaces, marking a significant shift from previous targets of 30% representation, originally established by the Beijing Declaration in 1995.

A critical aspect of GR40 is that it elevates the standards of participation in international spaces, including international judicial bodies and monitoring bodies, peace and security sectors, arbitration mechanisms, and multilateral forums—areas where women’s representation has historically been absent or insufficient.
In justifying the recommendation of 50:50, rather than a minimum 30% as the Beijing Platform urged, CEDAW clarified that “equal and inclusive representation” must be the standard across all platforms to meet the Convention’s goal of eliminating gender discrimination and that the 30% minimum conveys a message that inequality between women and men is justifiable. CEDAW took the approach that even though countries are mostly off-track with achieving the Beijing 1995 targets, it is better to start planning for the 50:50 parity now.
The current statistics underscore the need for change. In 2022, only 16% of peace negotiators were women, and gender-based provisions featured in only 33% of peace agreements. Women hold 27% of parliamentary seats globally and only 35% in local government. This underrepresentation persists despite research indicating that women’s political leadership results in more stability, peace, and people-focused governance.
Addressing Economic Disparities in Leadership, CEDAW pointed out that presently, despite women making up a significant portion of the workforce, they hold only 28.2% of management roles globally. The Committee also addressed the Gender Gap in Technology and Artificial Intelligence, noting women’s severe underrepresentation in tech and AI sectors.
Guyana is one of the countries that have made a concerted effort to achieve the Beijing Platform targets for Parliaments. In its amended constitution in 2001, there is a provision for all lists of candidates in national and local government elections: a minimum of 33% of the candidates must be women. The parliament of Guyana (September 2020 – present) has approximately 40% women MPs. Note that in the 1st election after independence, held in 1968, the Parliament of Guyana only had 10% women as MPs. In Caricom today, only two countries have met the 30% Beijing target for women MPs – Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. Jamaica is also a third Caricom country that is within closing distance to the 30%, reaching approximately 29%.
Guyana’s push for gender equality has achieved success. The Global Gender Gap Index was first introduced by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2006 to benchmark progress towards gender parity across four dimensions: economic opportunities, education, health, and political leadership. The 2024 Report ranked 146 countries which had the relevant statistics to enable ranking. Guyana was one of the 146 countries that met the eligibility standards for being included. Guyana’s rank in 2024 was 35th, with a score of 76.5%. In 2021, Guyana ranked 53rd, with a score of 72.8%. Guyana continues to make improvements on the Gender Gap Index (GGI). These scores should improve significantly in subsequent reports.
The average (mean) score for the 146 countries was 68.5%, showing that Guyana was 8 points above the global average. Guyana is also ahead of the average score for Latin America and the Caribbean which was 74.2% in 2024, with Guyana 2.3% above this average. Guyana’s average score for economic participation and opportunity for women is 72.8%, with a rank of #47. But with President Irfaan Ali’s mission of engaging women and youth in agriculture, future Gender Gap Index scores for economic participation and opportunity should change dramatically, leading to the overall Gender Gap Index score also improving.
Guyana’s President, HE Dr Irfaan Ali, was given the honour of addressing through a video message the closing ceremony of the World Food Forum, which was held last week in Rome. In his message, President Ali committed that Guyana is targeting a minimum of 30% of agri-businesses to be owned by women and 50% to be owned by women and youth. While many countries are promoting women and youth in agriculture and while the UN SDGs have set this ambitious target for women and youth, few countries have embarked so boldly on meeting this commitment.
About 80% of the world’s food is produced by small-scale farming. Women make up on average 43% of this agricultural labour in developing countries. They are the majority in some countries. In South Asia, more than two-thirds of employed women work in agriculture. In eastern Africa, over half of farmers are women. Yet they face significant discrimination when it comes to land and livestock ownership, equal pay, participation in decision-making entities, and access to credit and financial services. For example, only between 10% and 20% of agricultural land owners around the world are women. For this reason, one of the SDG targets (SDG 5.1.a) is specifically related to land ownership and rights: “Secure and equal ownership rights for women over agricultural land”.
CEDAW GR40 comes at a time when globally, countries are preparing for the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration on Gender Rights. Guyana has made impressive gains since Beijing 1995. It is one of few countries in the LAC with a Women and Gender Equality Commission. Hopefully, our country will emerge as a champion for GR40. I am certain that GR40 will be a serious subject for the Constitution Reform Commission, which has started work in Guyana.