UN on ‘positive trajectory’ towards full gender parity  

Women leaders called for swift, concerted action to advance gender rights at the first International Conference on Women’s Transformational Leadership, in Juba, South Sudan on Tuesday.

Women’s empowerment and gender equality are “essential to global progress”, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stressed in his message for International Women's Day which this year puts “innovation by women and girls, for women and girls”, at the heart of efforts to achieve gender equality.

Gender equality is essentially “a question of power” that for millennia, has, “to the detriment of all”, been mostly in the hands of men, the UN chief told a town hall meeting on Wednesday, devoted to the issue.