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No ‘manels’, more gender equality in Indonesia: a UN Resident Coordinator blog

A common excuse is that women panellists are a little harder to find; well, panel organizers just have to look a little harder. ‘Manels’ are an aberration when the issue being discussed directly concerns women, such as sexual and reproductive rights. Youth activists had a motto, “nothing about us without us”; the same applies to women’s issues.

If we want gender equality in presidencies and parliaments and other positions of power, then we certainly ought to be able to have women on every panel. There’s no reason to leave women out of any discussion, and there’s every reason to include them, for they bring another perspective and raise questions and issues that men might never have considered.


World Bank/Nugroho Nurdikiawan Sunjoyo

Women play an important role in community discussions after their village Yogyakarta was badly affected by a volcanic eruption.

A ‘no-manel’ pledge

For these and other reasons, we at the UN in Indonesia have taken a ‘no-manel’ pledge, and, with our encouragement and the strong support of the Ambassador of Canada, we’ve gotten over 40 ambassadors — including not just the typical donor nations, but also ambassadors representing a diverse range of countries from every continent — to join in.

In addition, senior officials from the Government of Indonesia have joined this initiative. There continues to be considerable interest and we fully expect the number of Ambassadors, Ministers and even CEOs from the private sector to grow in the weeks ahead.

UN Indonesia is putting together a user-friendly and practical guide to assist our country team members as well as our external partners to avoid situations of either co-organizing or speaking at an event featuring a ‘manel’. It is clear that in certain disciplines, there are far fewer women than men and, even with the best of intentions, it is particularly challenging to identify suitable women experts

Still, there is no silver bullet, no quick fix. The phenomenon of ‘manels’ will not disappear overnight, but the UN will have unquestionably raised the bar, increased the cost of neglecting women’s voices, generated greater public awareness and created a multiplier effect towards normalizing gender-balanced public policy discourse.

The ’no-manel’ pledge is sometimes construed as a strike at men. None of this is to disparage men’s points of view, only to point out the obvious, and to reverse it: a panel without women is a disservice to the world of equality, freedom, and peace we seek to build, and need.”

Source UN News

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