UN Warns Gender Equality Is 171 Years Away as World Moves Backwards, Not Forward

At the current rate of progress, gender equality remains 171 years away, the United Nations has warned in a new report. The warning comes as world leaders prepare to gather in New York for the high-level week of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly.

The findings, published on 17 September by UN Women and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) in the Gender Snapshot 2026, found that not a single indicator under Sustainable Development Goal 5, the UN's dedicated gender equality goal, is currently on track to be met by 2030.

The report warns of a wider retreat from gender equality and the institutions designed to advance it.

Institutions Losing Ground

One in three institutional mechanisms built specifically to advance gender equality, such as ministries or dedicated equality units, reported having their institutional power eroded over the past two years, the report found. The finding comes from responses from 54 institutions across seven regions.

Around one in four of those bodies also reported cuts to their operating budgets in the same period. Nearly one in 10 reported losing autonomous control of their budgets altogether.

Funding for gender equality work has also declined, with bilateral allocable official development assistance carrying gender-equality objectives falling 13 per cent between 2023 and 2024 to its lowest volume since 2021. Women's rights organisations were hit particularly hard, with their funding dropping 28 per cent between 2023 and 2024.

'Amid funding cuts, 42 per cent of UN entities report a weakening of their gender equality efforts,' the report stated.

Men Still Dominate Leadership

The figures illustrate the scale of the imbalance in political and economic leadership. Six in seven countries worldwide are still led by men.

Women remain underrepresented in cabinet, with close to nine in 10 defence ministers and more than eight in 10 finance ministers being men. Women also remain underrepresented in corporate and judicial leadership, holding six per cent of chief executive positions at publicly traded companies and fewer than one in five chief justice positions worldwide.

Even getting into the race is harder for women. The report notes that the cost of running for office can exceed 100 times a country's average income per person in some cases, creating a major financial barrier to political participation.

In some countries, as many as eight in 10 women parliamentary candidates surveyed reported facing violence during their campaigns.

Why This Matters Right Now

UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous said the data 'leave no room for ambiguity'. 'Equality cannot be achieved without equal access to power ... because equality without power is not equality at all,' she said.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Li Junhua echoed the warning, saying the 171-year timeline 'is not inevitable ... it is the result of choices, made visible through data'.

The report comes at a significant moment. The UN is currently selecting its 10th Secretary-General, who is due to take office in January 2027, a post no woman has held in the organisation's history.

Six candidates had been nominated by the time of a UN-hosted candidate town hall in July, including women candidates.

The Bigger Picture

The findings sit alongside separate data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which found women held 27.5 per cent of national parliamentary seats worldwide as of 1 January 2026, up just 0.3 percentage points from the previous year and marking the slowest growth since 2017 for the second consecutive year.

The IPU also recorded a drop in the proportion of women parliamentary Speakers, from 23.7 per cent to 19.9 per cent in a single year.

Taken together, the two datasets indicate that gains in women's political representation remain slow, while some measures of women's political leadership have moved backwards.

The UN report cites evidence linking women's participation in decision-making with stronger outcomes in areas including health, education, poverty reduction and climate policy.

It also warns that without effective institutions, commitments to gender equality can remain promises rather than becoming policies, budgets and results that reach women and girls. With four years remaining until the 2030 deadline, the report warns that the current pace of progress is insufficient to meet the goal.