NEW YORK, November 11 (IPS) – The United Nations knows how to announce a milestone. What interests me, after a career that has included working inside UNICEF and UNDP and evaluating institutions from outside them, is what happens between the announcement and the working day.
Thalif Deen’s IPS article of 3 November 2026 asks whether gender bias at the UN is approaching an “inglorious end.” It is a question, not a declaration, and the reporting gives considerable space to continuing inequalities. Alongside achievements in representation, staff representatives describe barriers to advancement, weaknesses in accountability and fears about reporting discrimination. The article itself supplies reasons to resist a premature obituary for institutional bias.[1]
I bring a perspective to this question, certainly. But the discipline of evaluation requires me to challenge my own expectations as carefully as an institution’s claims. If the evidence demonstrates progress, acknowledge it. If it supports a narrower conclusion than the public celebration, say so.
The UN’s published figures demonstrate substantial progress towards numerical gender parity. They do not, on their own, establish whether discrimination in recruitment, advancement, treatment or access to authority has diminished.
UN Women reports that women’s share of Professional and higher categories across the UN system rose from 47 per cent in 2021 to 48.8 per cent in 2023, reaching 50.4 per cent in 2025. It also reports that parity among the Senior Management Group and resident coordinators has been maintained since 2018. These are meaningful achievements, and dismissing them would weaken any serious critique.[2]
The dates matter. The Secretary-General’s 2025 report principally covers January 2022 to December 2023, with developments through mid-2025. Its figures should not be presented as a fresh assessment of the workforce in November 2026.[2]
But an institutional average is an exceptionally comfortable place to hide an uncomfortable distribution.
UN Women’s accompanying infographic presents the following figures for 2025, citing the system-wide dashboard in June of that year:[3]
| Category | Women’s representation |
|---|---|
| Professional and higher categories, overall | 50.4% |
| P-1, entry professional level | 66.7% |
| P-2 | 59.1% |
| P-5 | 46.0% |
| D-1, director level | 44.0% |
| D-2, director level | 44.1% |
These figures appear in the same published presentation. They show how an overall majority can coexist with women’s underrepresentation at director levels. Under the UN’s operational definition, parity falls within a range of 47 to 53 per cent; the D-1 and D-2 figures above remain below that range.[3] [5]
That distribution does not, by itself, prove discrimination in individual appointments. Nor does a snapshot establish that women progress more slowly than men. It establishes why an aggregate percentage cannot answer the question of equal advancement. For that, we need to follow careers: who applies, who is shortlisted, who is selected, who progresses, how long progression takes, and who leaves.
There is another question beneath the celebration: which UN are we measuring?
The Secretariat dashboard cited in the article explicitly covers a defined population of international staff. Its explanatory notes say General Service and national staff are not shown and are intended for a subsequent phase. It also specifies appointment types and excludes entities with ten or fewer people. These are legitimate statistical boundaries, but they are boundaries all the same.[4]
This does not mean the UN collects no information about those groups elsewhere. It means this particular dashboard cannot establish what is happening across the whole workforce.
The Secretariat and the wider UN system are not interchangeable reporting populations. Neither are international professionals, national personnel and consultants. Every claim should tell the reader whose working lives it describes.
The Secretariat’s own human resources strategy also identifies a measure that reaches beyond headcounts. In A/80/550, the gap between women and men in the employee-empowerment dimension of the staff engagement survey is recorded as eight percentage points in 2021 and nine in 2024. Closing that gap is an explicit objective.[5]
The table does not explain the causes, establish whether the change is statistically significant, or identify which group scored higher. It should not be used as proof that discrimination worsened. It does, however, identify a workplace-experience gap that representation figures alone cannot resolve.
Nor should scepticism escape scrutiny. Shihana Mohamed, quoted in the IPS article, argues that reductions in male-dominated parts of the workforce helped produce the improved percentages. That is an explanation requiring examination, rather than a demonstrated finding we can simply adopt. The article does not provide the underlying analysis needed to establish how much of the change resulted from workforce reductions.[1]
An illustrative example shows why the question matters. An organisation employing 400 women and 600 men has 40 per cent female representation. Remove 200 men, recruit nobody, and it reaches 50 per cent. The calculation is correct; the explanation determines what achievement can reasonably be claimed. This is a hypothetical example, not a description of what happened at the UN.
Conversely, that possibility cannot justify assuming that the UN’s gains are merely arithmetic. We need comparable data on recruitment, promotion, retirement, separation and post abolition, using consistent dates and staff populations. Scrutiny must work in both directions.
What would persuade me that institutional bias was diminishing? Evidence of fairer career progression across grades, nationalities and contract types; greater confidence in raising concerns; credible protection against retaliation; and demonstrable consequences for discriminatory management. These are proposed tests of institutional change, not findings that the representation statistics have already established.
I would also ask whose experience disappears inside the category “women.” An international director, a national officer and a consultant awaiting renewal may share a gender while having profoundly different access to security and influence. An assessment of equality should examine those differences, rather than assume that one aggregate can represent them all.
The UN deserves credit for its documented gains in women’s representation. It should welcome equally rigorous examination of what those gains mean for working lives.
Count the women, certainly. Then examine who advances, who has authority, who can challenge a decision safely, and whose expertise changes the decision. Numerical parity is a meaningful achievement. Establishing that institutional bias is diminishing requires further evidence.
References
1. Deen, Thalif. “Is Gender Bias at the UN Coming to an Inglorious End?” Inter Press Service, 3 November 2026. Syndicated version.
2. UN Women. “Improvement in the status of women in the United Nations system: Report of the Secretary-General (2025).” Publication summary accompanying report A/80/260, 25 July 2025.
3. UN Women. “Representation of Women in the UN System.” Infographic accompanying the 2025 Secretary-General’s report, p. 1; 2025 figures attributed to the UN System-wide Dashboard on Gender Parity, June 2025.
4. United Nations. “UN Secretariat Gender Parity Dashboard.” Coverage and methodological notes. Accessed 3 November 2026.
5. United Nations, Secretary-General. “Implementation of human resources management reforms: outlook for 2026–2029.” A/80/550, 28 November 2025, p. 13: gender-parity definition, employee-empowerment indicators and targets.
Stephanie Hodge, MPA Harvard (2006), is an international evaluator and former UN advisor who has worked across 140 countries. She is a former staffer of UNDP (1994-1996 & 1999- 2004) and UNICEF (2008-2014). She writes on governance, multilateral reform, and climate equity.
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