A (3:08)

Yeah, I mean, I think also just for a bit of scene setting here. So this is my first time covering the CSW at column, has been many, many times. But I think for me it's been interesting because I had heard off the get go that this, this CSW was going to be a lot lighter. This is the largest gathering for gender equality around the world. And, you know, you kind of expect there to be a lot of energy and interest around this event. And I think what is increasingly interesting to me is that folks are saying there's less people here this year because primarily of the US Being the host. You know, people are worried about visa restrictions. There's issues with immigration, kind of like a bit of a culture of is my safety going to be at risk? We've had a number of different kind of issues with immigration and law enforcement here in the United States that I think is turning quite a few people off from attending. And of course, there's also the logistical visa restrictions, so things like travel bans from a number of different, especially African countries. So that's kind of a little bit of the. I think the reason why it feels a little lighter here. And there is this idea or this sense that this is all happening, there's less people attending. I am the only journalist that I've run into so far. I'm sure there's media around, but it's been a little hard to find people even kind of covering these topics. And it's contributing to this concept of like, are people listening? Especially when there's pushback and pullback, as Colin mentioned on the US Side and from a couple of other countries as well.

B (4:23)

And one of the things I know that you wrote about also is that this, this all happens at a time when actually women's rights globally are sort of backsliding. And I thought that that was an important sort of piece of this and an interesting sort of part of where things stand as people gather in New York for this conference. And, you know, both of you really talked about this, this sort of political dimension in the role of the US and you did some reporting about this sort of specific, you know, US Objections to, to this outcomes document. And I'm wondering if we could dive in a little bit more to that. What are some of the things that the US Is objecting to? What is the language that they're saying we don't want included? And how are we seeing sort of that reflect maybe. I know it's this isn't only at csw I know column you've reported about seeing these types of things in other processes. So maybe we can dive into that a little bit. Colm, maybe I'll go to you.

C (5:16)

So it's been an interesting negotiation because it's been going on for weeks and actually the original document was sort of introduced sometime back, I think in January. But the US is essentially not engaged in the initial part of the negotiations. The first. Usually what they do is they produce what's called a compilation document which has hundreds of pages, every single country's amendments, what they want. And the Americans were unusually absent from that. And so they didn't really start to engage in negotiations until kind of the last week or so and last week and a half. And at that point they came with like 90amendments. And they're not new. I mean, we've been looking at these over the last year or so and we see these issues coming up in various different negotiations over different topics. But essentially issues like they don't want, they want gender to be defined as reflecting, referring to only women and girls. And they see that as code word for protecting trans people, other people in the LGBTQ TI community, they don't want that. They're very suspicious about references to sexual reproductive health and rights. They see that as code for abortion. But there are other issues like AI regulation, misinformation, disinformation, hate speech towards women, things like this. Where ideologically they see that as a code sort of word for censorship of conservative views. There are other issues along those lines. Reparations for, you know, for victims of gender based crimes. They were uncomfortable with any notion of reparations. A whole slew of issues that were not, you know, don't. Naturally, you don't see them as part of the discussion about women's rights. But, but they, they play into that. And, and so I think, you know, what happened at the very end is that the US didn't get a lot of what they wanted. Maybe they got some stuff along the margins, but they tried to, to sort of focus. Well, they tried a number of things. They tried to, you know, convince the negotiators to, you know, keep the negotiation going on for more weeks. They didn't want to. They felt that there was a consensus and they should withdraw the document. They were, there was a lot of push, didn't win those issues, those negotiations or the arguments in those negotiations. And they were left not partly isolated, but not entirely isolated. There are a lot of these social conservative issues like gender and sexual reproductive health and rights, where there are a lot of countries that are like minded. So they came out pretty much on the short end of this negotiation. But it was pretty clear that there were countries in the room, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria, that were very sympathetic to American arguments about, on the one hand, the need to sort of continue the negotiations to get consensus, but also, you know, just more sort of sympathy towards the American position on some of these social and health issues.

B (8:29)

Alyssa, I'm curious what else you're sort of picking up. And I know you've also spent some time at sort of another summit outside the UN that might be more reflective of some of these US positions.

A (8:40)

Yeah. So I'm kind of getting a sense that there's two blocks here, or rather kind of two different conferences, but also the groupings of countries. And this is something that we've seen, I think the entire team at Devex as we've been traveling to these various conferences and events and seen the way in which different countries show up on a lot of development issues. The blocks that I'm referring to are some of which Colm has just mentioned in terms of some countries coming out really strongly and doing that together and other countries coming out really strongly against and doing that either together or in kind of a complementary way on the, on the former. I think here at UNH Q where I am now, you see the Nordic showing Nordic countries showing up really, really strongly. So there's a lot of kind of side events that are focused on gender equality and sexual reproductive health and rights and abortion, like access and provisions and the kind of things that are much more progressive. And that's really where you see like the Sweden's, the Norways and more progressive European countries. Now on the other side there is a different event called the Conference on the Status of Women and Families and that begins officially today. But I did go to a related event yesterday and that was hosted by a number of different kind of American organizations and think tanks, but on the pro life, anti abortion side and hosted by the government of Nigeria at the, at the Nigeria House here just next to the UN and that was really an interesting event because it was about violence against women and girls. But it was really focused on. Focused on transgender issues. So a lot of talk about detransitioning, kind of the regrets that. Which in reality is a very small portion. I think the number hovers around 1% of people that do regret transition surgery. But those kind of testimonies were brought through video. A very, very long speech that was given by a UN special repertoire on violence against women and girls, talking again about transgender issues. So we're seeing kind of a lot of these culture wars being brought into the UN stage in different ways and playing out with a different set perhaps of characters. Again, the yesterday at the Nigeria House, of course, a lot of Nigerians. You know, the room that I was in was packed. I would say about 300 people. So clearly a lot of interest on both sides of the aisle in terms of how people stand on these pretty controversial gender issues.

C (10:45)

Column.

B (10:45)

One thing I'm curious about you. You talked about how this is essentially the first time that a vote has been forced. What do you think that means in terms of setting a precedent? Does it create challenges moving forward for the CSW or for other UN Processes?

C (11:00)

Well, the conclusions were agreed and adopted. And the Americans blocked it. Right. Or they blocked, you know, consensus. You know, that's not great. You know, it's like, you know, they have a tradition of adopting these by consensus, but, you know, the process is still there. The CSW is still kind of alive and well. And, you know, potentially one day there will be a different government in the United States, and you will have a kind of a return to a different, you know, approach to this. And so, you know, they. The documents haven't been radically scaled back. They've been chipped away on the edges. So I'm not sure that, you know, that over the long term that that will have much of an impact. But I think what's interesting is. And what's curious is, is that there, you know, the US Is having quite a bit of success in terms of building this broader coalition on some of these conservative social issues, abortion, gender, and. And such. I mean, reflected in the fact that they have such a big turnout at this Nigerian event dealing with trans issues. So, I mean, that is an area where I think the Americans can make some gains and are making gains. And the question is, is to what degree does that ultimately, you know, result in. In a fundamental change in the way that the UN Approaches and engages in these issues?

B (12:25)

Yeah, I think, to me, it's interesting, the sort of coalitions or new coalitions that the US Is creating around some of these issues and the ripple effects of changes that the administration is, is undertaking. I was reporting a story this week about gender lens investing. And it's, it's interesting to me because actually the 2x initiative was created in the first Trump administration at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or opic, which is the Development Finance Corporation's predecessor. And it was really, you know, really ended up being a field building initiative. It translated to a G7 initiative and then an independent organization that's really trying to build this field of gender lens investing. But at the same time, what I'm hearing from people is not only a pullback on the importance or the number of these investments potentially at dfc, but sort of knock on effects from this pullback against something like women's entrepreneurship, which was a priority in the first administration. So I think it goes beyond even just rights or gender, but it's even about issues of women's entrepreneurship. And one of the things that came up in my conversations was, you know, that even though there's this sort of political backlash, people in the industry are sort of leaning into the economic arguments because if you're not serving women from an economic perspective, it actually has a, you know, detrimental effect to GDP and to economic growth writ large for countries. So, you know, I think it'll be interesting to see how some of that plays out. I spoke to a woman who was raising a fund to support African women entrepreneurs, had US Aid funding pulled away, and then also saw foundations saying, you know, we're on hold, we're waiting to see what the administration's going to do, and had corporate backers sort of pull their funding, saying they're no longer doing anything around inclusion. So we are seeing sort of ripple effects of some of these policy things sort of play out, which, which I think is interesting.

C (14:22)

I think, I think where the rubber is going to hit the road at the UN is more on the issue of whether the US is able to use its financial contributions to impose conditionality on the un. So the US has set up a vehicle for funding all humanitarian operations. It goes through an outfit called the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. And instead of funding wfp, UNICEF and the others, all the money goes through there. And there are agreements that are signed with the UN on how that money is spent. So there are restrictions on support for abortion, although there always have been. And now there's a question mark over whether this will apply to programs which are identified with diversity, equity and inclusion and that sort of thing. So that's where I Think you're going to really start to see the potential impact of this in terms of the US has found, I mean, the Trump administration has found that they have more leverage in terms of, you know, withholding or providing funds. And that's, I think, where you're going to see this really play out in a way that changes the way that potentially changes the way the UN Distributes and supports and provides humanitarian assistance around the world.

B (15:39)

Yeah. And, you know, you've sort of alluded to the US Expanding the Mexico City policy restrictions, which used to apply just to, you know, foreign NGOs, now has been expanded to apply to essentially Anyone who receives U.S. foreign assistance and goes beyond preventing abortion to address issues including diversity, equity and inclusion, and gender identity. And so I think one of the big questions. I know, Alyssa, you told me that you're hearing talk about this on the sidelines of csw, but one of the big questions is, will these policies apply to the UN and to UN Agencies, and in what ways? Because it's sort of unprecedented. They're, you know, is in the. In the rules that were released, mention of a waiver process, but I think it's still unclear what that looks like, if the UN could or would get any waivers. Alyssa, I don't know if you're. If there's anything you want to share about what you're hearing on that so far.

A (16:34)

Yeah, I mean, I think that you've hit the nail on the head, Adva, when you talk about the vagueness of it all. And I think that's what's really bothering people here. I'm asking organizations and folks that are tracking the expansion of the Mexico City policy, like, what does that actually mean? What are you seeing, hearing? And I think a lot of people are like, we just have so many questions. Like, we're still really unclear how this will quite work. We, again, as. As both column and have mentioned, there's these three different buckets where it expands what typically was counted under this funding restriction to gender ideology. And kind of the definition around that

B (17:04)

is a bit fuzzy.

A (17:05)

And then also dei, so speaking with someone yesterday that is a specialist on LGBTQ plus issues was just telling me, like, for a lot of organizations, this will be the final nail in the coffin. Right. Like, most of were when it comes to at least LGBTQ plus issues were kind of sliced away last year. I mean, we saw these programs being terminated in the masses, and now it's like the ones that were able to hold on with any little US Bit of fund that any bit of funding that they got from the US Might see that be extinguished now. So there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of uncertainty. I think that people are still trying to weed through the documents and see what happens. What does this mean? And I think the reality is too, it's starting afresh in a way that is really, I think, startling for people. We know that no one can fill the gap that the US Was providing in terms of even family planning before. I think it was something like 630 million a year in terms of just family planning services. So there's a lot that will be missing going forward. And I think people are still just kind of waiting to see how the dust will settle there.

C (18:06)

Alyssa and I have been trying to find. There are these memorandums of understanding that the US has signed for all of the country situations where they're investing their money. And we have been trying to get this document or one of these documents to see what the terms are. So there's less, so it's less vague. Haven't succeeded yet, but we're still digging around for that. So if anybody has seen it and is watching this, you know where we are.

B (18:33)

Yeah, it'll be really interesting to sort of see how some of this is spelled out because I think one of the things in talking to people over the years, not just with this expanded policy, but with previous iterations of Mexico City policy, one of the real challenges is because there's vague language, people tend to sort of over implement restrictions and sort of pre comply with restrictions because they don't want to run afoul of the restrictions, but they don't actually understand exactly where that line is of what they need to do or not. So I think we're sort of seeing this play out as it's entering into force and people are grappling with some of this.

A (19:14)

The world is facing a range of health threats, from an increase in disease outbreaks to the health impacts of climate change. I'm Jenny Leigh Ravelo, senior global health reporter for devex. Every Thursday we bring you exclusive news and insights on how the health sector is finding solutions to these challenges in our free weekly newsletter, Devex Checkup. Visit devex.comnewsletters to subscribe.

B (19:46)

I wanted to turn to another issue which I know is probably also being talked about a lot at csw, which is this potential merger between UN women and unfpa. It's something that we've heard about as part of broader UN reforms. But Alyssa, I know it's something that you've been sort of looking into what can you tell us about where things stand in those discussions, what that would look like, what people's reactions are.

A (20:08)

Yeah, so another really, really big topic here. Now, if you aren't aware of this proposal and you aren't aware of the UN 80 initiative, I would encourage all folks to go back to Collins reporting over the past year, because he's covered this extensively. But essentially this was a proposal that was brought about to, in order to streamline the UN right to really kind of look at the way that the UN is operating and figure out ways to increase efficiencies, et cetera, et cetera. So this proposal is, is looking at merging the un merging the United Nations Population Fund, or unfpa, which focuses on sexual reproductive health and rights, a lot of service delivery with UN women, which focuses on gender equality. It does a lot of systems work. And the ways in which that proposal would work are still being ironed out. Now, I will caveat. This is not a dumb decision. That's the point of this conversation that we're having. It's really kind of like in the process and the UN is assessing whether this makes sense. But over the last couple of days, we did see the first kind of baseline analysis document be published by the United nations, which looked kind of a side by side at each entity, their budget, their operations, the way they work, their board, their makeup, their donors, and just kind of like compare them side by side in preparation for a potential merger conversation. Now, of course, people are very worked up about this on both the this could work really well, this could streamline. But the vast majority of people that I'm talking to here, at least at unhq, are concerned. They're worried that it would dilute potentially both mandates in terms of these organizations that have pretty different operations and programs. And they're also worried that it would just draw more attention to these organizations focused on women's rights in a time where, as previously mentioned, people do feel like this whole concept of gender equality is under attack and sexual and reproductive health and rights. So we're looking at what will happen next. And what we do know is that this was the first of potentially probably two documents. We're waiting for another assessment document that will be released, someone told me yesterday, very soon. So we're kind of all eyes and ears out for that document in terms of what the recommendation is about whether these two organizations should be merged. Now, what will eventually have to happen is the UN Secretary General will provide some sort of recommendation. And then ultimately in September, the UN General assembly will vote on this, whether we should go forward with this proposed merger, otherwise should not. So it's still months away from a decision point, but this is the first document that we've seen that really kind of pushes that all into motion poll.

B (22:25)

I wonder if you can sort of, if we zoom out, if you can give us sort of a little update on where things stand in broader UN reforms in sort of UN 80. And I think the other piece that's happening sort of in parallel to these discussions is the UN Secretary General race, which we've seen a couple of new candidates in recent weeks. And I know that the sort of nomination deadline is approaching. And so that's all starting to heat up. So can you kind of give us an update on that race and on sort of how that fits into the broader UN reform conversation? This really does seem like quite a pivotal moment for the UN which has been grappling with how do they reform, how do they cut costs, given the sort of environment. So it seems like quite a pivotal SG race and moment in time in general.

C (23:10)

Yeah, I mean, I think all the focus on the UN80 initiative and the reform has been a real kind of narrow focus on sort of dollars and cents and hasn't really focused perhaps enough on what does the UN want to be and what do we need in a Secretary General. I think there's kind of broad agreement across, you know, the UN membership and other places is that, you know, it would be great to see the UN get back into like, mediation. There were wars, you know, there's been us, you know, sort of decapitation of the leadership in Venezuela. There's a massive spreading conflict in the Middle east. The war between Israel, the US on one hand and Iran and the others, and the United nations, which in the past would have been, you know, not the decider, but sort of a player in a lot of these negotiations, just doesn't play that role anymore. This Secretary General has tended to focus more on some of the kind of more thematic issues, global common goods issues like climate change, humanitarian. I mean, he's, you know, the most sort of the biggest kind of, you know, major diplomatic negotiation they conducted was the Ukraine grain deal, which has since fallen apart. But it was quite an achievement. But it was very narrowly focused on how do we get food out of Ukraine to the rest of the world so that we don't have spiraling costs around the world of food prices and that sort of thing. And they did a pretty good job of negotiating that deal. But, you know, there really wasn't even a pretense at that point that they were going to that they had much of a role in trying to end the war. So I think that with a new secretary general, there will be a hope among membership that the UN Gets back into that issue and and that it has more of a presence. I mean, I don't think anyone would expect any secretary general to be able to contain US Military ambitions or those of other major powers. But they were sort of generally in the picture. I mean, the US Was the forum for recognizing the creation of Israel. It has been a key player for decades in all kind of Middle east negotiations, peace negotiations. They're not really players there. They're kind of really on the sidelines. So what we have now is like in terms of the race is we have a pretty short list of candidates who have formally entered the race. We have people like Rafael Grossi, who is the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been very active in sort of nuclear crises in Iran, Ukraine. We have Michel Bachelet, former president of Chile. We have a number of others, Macky Saul, coming from a former president of Senegal, former head of the African Union. And we also have Rebecca Grinspan, who was one of the key players in the Ukraine grain deal negotiations, and she's from Ecuador. So those are the candidates. You know, it's hard to figure out who is a front runner. I mean, initially, Rafael Grossi was the only candidate who had joined in. There was some sense that he was the front runner. He's now in the middle of this sort of complex nuclear standoff in Iran and the question of what happens in the nuclear program. He will have to be very careful how he handles this. And there are plenty of kind of political, diplomatic minefields that could upset one of the key powers and derail his candidacy. But, you know, he looks like a, you know, a serious candidate. Michelle Bachelet, Rebecca grinspan, Latin American candidates women There has been kind of growing support for the idea that there should be finally a woman secretary general. We've never had one. Also, in the past, there's been a tradition of rotating the secretary general. Road to key regional organizations The Latin Americans have not had it since the end of the Cold War, when Xavier Perez a cuer was the secretary general. So there's kind of broad agreement that or there had been that it should be a Latin Americans, but the Eastern Europeans have never had it. They feel that they have a claim on it. The Trump administration has kind of pushed back on this notion that there should be a spike, specific preference for either for women or for a region. And that sort of I think probably provided some encouragement to Macky saw who is from Senegal and you know, they had a Secretary General not, you know, not that long ago with Kofi Annan. So it'll be a tough sell but, but it gives you the sense that this is, there's going to be a lot of, you know, people competing for this job and not just from Latin America. So you know, we can get into some thoughts about who we think may have a chance and who may not. But it basically, I'm curious if you

B (28:09)

have any, any predictions and sort of what role the US and the Trump administration might play in sort of pushing a specific candidate or any candidates chances.

C (28:20)

Yeah, so I think, you know, my sense is that they're happy with Grossi. Last year he reached a conclusion in the IEA that, that Iran was in key violations of some of its requirements under the agreements with the iea. Some sense that that gave the US And Israel greater scope for action, political cover. So if the Russians or the Chinese interpret it that way then it would be a hard sell to bring them on board. But he's dealt with the Russians on Ukraine and I think he's, he's a caution, he's a careful, skilled diplomat. So it's is really a question for me is like how does he manage the relationship with the Chinese and the Russians. Michelle Bachelet, probably the most prominent, best known candidate, not just woman candidate, but candidate. I mean she was, you know, a major figure and she's been a major figure in Latin American politics for the last decades. She may have a real problem with the Americans. They tried to block her appointment as High Commissioner for Human rights some years ago. They have concerns over issues that she's taken on abortion, you know, questions of whether she's been tough enough on China and also that, you know, viewing her as too critical of Israel. So I think she has a major hurdle to overcome. Rebecca Grinspan I think would be more of a dark horse candidate, but is someone that, I'm not aware that people have major objections to her. She worked closely with the Russians on the Ukraine file on the Americans as well. So you know, that's the slate. But then there's other people. I mean there's an Ecuadorian candidate, there's a Mexican, Alicia Barcena, who ran last time. She's a Mexican candidate, the senior minister in the government. She hasn't indicated she'll run and her government came out with a joint announcement supporting Michelle Bacholet. So That's a bit complicated. There's an Ecuadorian candidate, Yvonne Abdel Baki, sort of culturally Lebanese, has spent a lot of her life in Lebanon, but born to Lebanese immigrants in Ecuador, and apparently has a close relationship friendship with Trump, once hosted one of the Miss World events in Ecuador, and so is close to him. They. She hasn't been formally introduced as a candidate, but she's been sort of campaigning already, so. So there are a lot of candidates. You know, there could be there people kind of hanging out in the sidelines. Someone like Vuk Jaramic, who was the former Serbian president of the General assembly, former foreign minister. And he's been sort of. He was involved as a sort of chair in and kind of this organization called the DOGE Operation for the un, which never really produced very much, but he was on the board of that group. And so he's kind of in the background. And I wouldn't be shocked if at some point he would enter the race.

B (31:32)

What are we looking at in terms of timelines at this point? When do people have to sort of declare their candidacy? My understanding is that there might be some sort of public dialogue and questioning of candidates coming up in the next month or two as well.

C (31:45)

Yeah, April is going to be the period where they start. I mean, they did this in previous. In the last two elections. I mean, traditionally, you know, it was the P5, the permanent five members of the Security Council who have veto power were the ones who decide. So there's been a lot of work over the last 15, 20 years to try to broaden this process to make it more of an election, to require that the candidates, you know, have debates, that they take questions from the General assembly membership. And so that's been playing out. And so part of this process is they will have part of this dialogue in April. They hoped to have all the candidates by then, but some of the key permanent members of the Council pushed back on that. They wanted flexibility to be able to choose the Secretary General at any stage. So if they can't reach agreement, you know, usually they would decide there would be a vote in like, June, July. And I think that's the expectation. But, you know, if somebody comes out in June or July, you know, there's no reason why they can't be considered for the job. So that's always like playing in the background. If we get a standstill, you know, in the process, you know, someone can really, you know, come out of the wings to sort of compete for this job.

B (33:02)

Really interesting. That sounds like there will be a lot for you to track there. And I'm sure we'll be turning to you to sort of keep up to date on that and all the twists and turns and potential, potential last minute entries into into that race, which does feel quite pivotal. I know both of you have additional reporting that will come out on on these issues. And you know, CSW continues into next week. So I encourage folks to stay tuned. And I know we have some special newsletters and other content coming out. So we'll have that fully covered. And we'll obviously look to you column to sort of teach us more about this SG race as it unfolds. So, Alyssa Colm, thanks so much for joining me today. This has been this week in global development.

C (33:48)

Great. Thanks Hedla.

A (33:49)

Thank you.