Newsletter: Will the UN finally be led by a woman?

What was missing from the UNGA conversations, Chelsea Clinton on public health and maternal care, and good news from across the world

When Fuller launched its first editorial campaign to raise awareness about the role women play in water access, “Where women lead, water flows”, this week, I was pacing across a small press room in New York, surrounded by the US Secret Service. I was waiting to interview Chelsea Clinton about the importance of a maternal health paradigm that’s finally gaining some traction in the US: the fourth trimester (more on that below).

But during and after our conversation, I realized that Clinton was an anomaly. The rest of this week, in and around the UN General Assembly, I navigated rooms with some of the most powerful people on the planet, and, unlike Clinton, the words “women” or “gender” never came out of their mouths.

We’re not surprised – and have been here before.

It feels particularly pressing this year, when, for the first time in its 81-year history, there is a strong chance that a woman will become the UN’s next secretary-general. It’s not lost on those candidates, though, that their historic bid comes amid an unprecedented existential crisis. No matter who takes the helm, they will be carrying a fractured institution through uncharted territory and almost certainly be the scapegoat for any of its folly.