VZCZCXYZ0003
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUCNDT #0071/01 0292152
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 292152Z JAN 07
FM USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1223
INFO RUEHJB/AMEMBASSY BUJUMBURA 0009

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 000071 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KWMN KPAO UNGA PHUM PREL BY
SUBJECT: WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT AND THE UN PEACEBUILDING 
COMMISSION:  MEETING OF AMB. TAHIR-KHELI AND A/SYG MCASKIE 
 
REF: STATE 178055 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary.  Senior Advisor to the Secretary for 
Women's Empowerment Shirin Tahir-Kheli called upon UN 
Assistant Secretary-General Carolyn McAskie, who heads the 
recently created Peacebuilding Support Office of the UN 
Peacebuilding Commission (PBC).  McAskie commended the 
Secretary's outreach and support for the advancement of women 
 
SIPDIS 
worldwide, which Ambassador Tahir-Kheli described.  McAskie 
emphasized her hope that the PBC would shine a spotlight on 
the role of women in post-conflict situations.  While 
lamenting a lack of clarity about the PBC's mandate, McAskie 
said this new institution needed time to coalesce.  She 
recommended Burundi as a post-conflict country where the 
Women's Empowerment office (S/WE) might add special value by 
focusing on education, violence against women and land 
property rights.  McAskie acknowledged that the UN system 
itself had a long way to go to rectify gender imbalances 
within the UN system itself, particularly at managerial 
levels.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) On January 24, Senior Advisor to the Secretary for 
Women's Empowerment Dr. Shirin Tahir-Kheli called upon A/SYG 
Carolyn McAskie (Canadian) at UN headquarters.  McAskie heads 
the new Peacebuilding Support Office, which serves as a 
secretariat to the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC).  She 
 
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took a lively interest in information Ambassador Tahir-Kheli 
provided about Secretary Rice's working session with women 
Ministers and Heads of State on September 23 on the margins 
of the UN General Assembly (reftel).  Ambassador Tahir-Kheli 
described the five cluster groups that S/WE had identified as 
areas for action, including:  education; political 
participation; peace and security; culture and religion; and 
economic empowerment.  She noted that each of these areas 
embraced subgroups dedicated to critical issues that required 
concrete followup on the ground. 
 
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A FLEDGLING PBC SHOULD FOCUS ON SMALL COUNTRIES 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  With high praise for the Secretary's initiative, 
McAskie described her own experience and interest in the 
advancement of women, particularly in post-conflict 
situations.  (Bio Note:  McAskie served most recently as the 
senior UN envoy to Burundi and head of the UN peacekeeping 
operation there.  From 1994 to 2004, she was the UN's Deputy 
Emergency Relief Coordinator.) McAskie recalled that the 
resolutions that established the PBC in December 2005 had 
placed special emphasis on the role of women in rebuilding 
countries torn by conflict. Unfortunately, the PBC had so far 
failed to meet its promise or to agree upon a clear concept 
of what it might actually do.  In McAskie's view, this 
fledgling institution needed sharper definition and time to 
coalesce.  She reminded that the Security Council had a 
history established over more than 60 years, whereas the PBC 
had not yet completed its first year of operation.  For a 
start, the Peacebuilding Support Office that she heads needed 
to help establish a work plan, she volunteered. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  In the meantime, McAskie commended the PBC's 
attention to the first two country cases of Burundi and 
Sierra Leone.  Country specific meetings conducted last 
October and December had played a useful role in helping the 
two countries better define their own priorities, McAskie 
contended.  Regarding other candidate countries for PBC 
consideration, she suggested that selection criteria were 
probably better left undefined and she noted the designated 
role of the Security Council in making such recommendations 
when a peacekeeping operation was on the ground.  At the same 
time, she emphasized that a country must have emerged from 
conflict and passed into a stabilization period with an 
elected government in order to qualify for PBC attention. 
Such a modicum of stability was necessary to attract 
institutional donors, she said. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) In McAskie's personal opinion, the PBC needed to 
focus on smaller countries that are not objects of massive 
international attention, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. 
Instead, neglected countries that risked a relapse into 
strife owing to lack of support from the international 
community were more compelling candidates for PBC attention. 
Aid was important, McAskie said, noting that Burundi had only 
five significant donors. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
BURUNDI OFFERS OPPORTUNITY FOR WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶6.  (U)  Speaking from her on-site experience, McAskie 
described the uphill obstacles that women in Burundi sought 
to overcome, starting with their forced exclusion from the 
E 
 
 
1999 Arusha Peace Process.  While UNIFEM had helped insert 
language into the Arusha accords that set standards for the 
participation of women in Burundi's parliament, the quotas 
proved  hard to enforce in practice.  Assessing the needs of 
women in post-conflict countries was complicated, McAskie 
said, requiring analysis of legal, family and social 
structures.  In Burundi, she had helped reform land rights 
and inheritance laws. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Ambassador Tahir-Kheli asked McAskie's opinion 
about where the U.S. and other countries might most 
effectively add value to women's security in a post-conflict 
environment.  McAskie did not hesitate to recommend a focus 
on Burundi, particularly in the key areas of women's 
education, violence against women, and property rights. 
Because the Government of Burundi was committed to addressing 
these issues and counted upon a Minister for Gender for 
Affairs, she predicted that U.S. empowerment initiatives 
could result in real progress.  McAskie suggested that 
Tahir-Kheli consider a trip to Burundi, using Foreign 
Minister Antoinette Batumubwira as an entry point to 
introduce initiatives. 
 
----------------------------------- 
GENDER EQUITY LAGS IN THE UN SYSTEM 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  Finally, Tahir-Kheli pointed out the lamentable 
under-representation of women in the UN system.  McAskie was 
candid in deploring the failure of former SYG Kofi Annan to 
improve this situation.  While the UN hired a good percentage 
of women at junior job levels, McAskie admitted they were 
woefully short in managerial and top level positions - 
altogether under 15 percent.  Out of a total of 67 SRSG's 
(Special Representatives of the Secretary-General), only one 
is a woman, she said. 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  McAskie encouraged the U.S. to study 
recommendations of the UN Report on System-wide Coherence 
regarding gender mainstreaming.  The proposed creation of an 
Under Secretary-General position to consolidate leadership on 
gender equality and women's empowerment was a core 
recommendation that Annan had hoped to act upon.  However, 
time had run out on his tenure before Annan could take 
action, McAskie said. 
 
¶10.  (U)  Ambassador Tahir-Kheli has cleared this cable. 
WOLFF