The lack of gender equality in science is not just a problem that affects women. It also impedes a country’s development. Moreover, when we limit the size of the talent pool by making it harder for girls and women to choose a career in science, we compromise our capacity to solve complex problems. With the prospect of passing tipping points that could trigger abrupt climate change hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles, it makes sense to empower all of our brightest minds worldwide to take up this and other pressing challenges; and yet, we are still neglecting half of this talent pool.

According to the UNESCO Science Report: The Race Against Time for Smarter Development (2021), one in three researchers is a woman. That ratio could be much higher. Women have achieved parity at the bachelor’s and master’s levels of study and are on the cusp at the PhD level, but many of these graduates are either not choosing to embark on a career in research or leaving the research profession prematurely.

It is not hard to see why. Overall, female researchers tend to have shorter, less well-paid careers. Their work is underrepresented in high-profile journals and they are often passed over for promotion. Women are typically given smaller research grants than their male colleagues and earn less recognition from their peers: only 12 percent of members of national science academies are women. 

The situation is not much brighter in the private sector. Women founders of tech start-ups still struggle to access finance and, in large tech companies, women remain underrepresented in leadership and technical positions. Women are more likely than men to leave the tech field, often citing poor career prospects as a key motivation for their decision.

In today’s world, it is shocking that men and women still do not enjoy equal opportunity and equal pay in the workplace. We must step up our efforts to adopt gender-transformative policies and programmes that level the playing field from the schoolground to the highest levels of decision-making. This is also in our best interests. For example, studies have linked investor confidence and greater profit margins to having a diverse workforce. 

One way of eliminating gender stereotypes is to showcase exceptional women. This is what the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Fondation L’Oréal have been doing for 25 years through the For Women in Science Programme. To date, more than 3,900 women around the world have been recognized through this programme.

UNESCO is mainstreaming gender equality in its international scientific programmes. Some 42 per cent of research project leaders within the International Geoscience Programme are women, for instance, and the objective is to reach gender parity.

How will we tackle today’s daunting challenges—such as climate change, biodiversity loss, water stress, viral epidemics and the rapid development of artificial intelligence—if we cannot call upon all of our best minds, wherever they may be? 

Take the example of the water sector. Here, women make up less than 17 percent of the total paid workforce, according to the United Nations World Water Development Report 2016: Water and Jobs, published by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water. Women make up an even smaller minority in research and decision-making positions in the water sector, which remains a male-dominated environment.

The UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme has been coordinating a Call for Action since 2021 to accelerate progress towards gender equality in the water domain. By December 2022, more than 20 countries and 150 institutions had endorsed the Call for Action initiative. 

On the International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2022, peacekeepers with the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) raise awareness among women about the field of science and technology. Kanyabayonga, Rusthuru, North Kivu, DRC. MONUSCO Photos, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

출처 : Kanyabayonga, Rusthuru, North Kivu, DRC. MONUSCO Photos, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Since 2014, the World Water Assessment Programme has developed gender-responsive indicators and a methodology for collecting sex-disaggregated water data. These can be found in its Toolkit on Sex-Disaggregated Water Data.

UNESCO is prioritizing approaches to environmental management that are climate-resilient and gender-balanced. This dual approach is being incorporated, for example, into projects designed by the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme to improve the monitoring and forecasting of water-related hazards such as floods, storms and drought.

This approach is also characteristic of projects being implemented in the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves, which now extends to 134 countries and spans more than 5 percent of the Earth’s land surface, and beyond. In one project, UNESCO showed local women how to process the nuts of the wild-growing shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa) and, thereby, raise their income. The recovery of shea kernels has curtailed the felling of shea trees for charcoal production in this rural community. Now that they understand the value of the tree, the women have undertaken a campaign to raise awareness among their neighbors of the need to protect it.

Another way in which UNESCO is fostering a gender-balanced approach to environmental management is by encouraging community participation through citizen science. The Recommendation on Open Science adopted by the 193 UNESCO member States in November 2021 contributes to this objective by making it easier for men and women from all backgrounds to access scientific information and data that may have previously been locked behind a paywall.

It cannot be said too often that gender equality is at the heart of human rights. We are seeing some progress towards this goal but there is no room for complacency. We must be particularly vigilant about backsliding. There is no starker reminder of the need for vigilance than the case of Afghanistan, where girls and women have been brutally deprived of their right to learn and teach at all levels of education. UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay has affirmed that “UNESCO condemns this violation of a fundamental right and calls for it to be restored without delay”. According to the 2021 UNESCO Science Report , women made up 22 per cent of first-year Afghan university students enrolled in primarily STEM-related disciplines in 2018.

As we prepare to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on 11 February, the UNESCO Director-General has reiterated this fundamental message: “Women need science and science needs women. Only by tapping into all sources of knowledge, all sources of talent, can we unlock the full potential of science and rise to the challenges of our time”.