that were made in the last two reports, and which continue to need attention and action by some organizations. In certain cases, some organizations have not taken action endorsed by ACC and the General Assembly.

III. GENERAL REVIEW

11. Staff at the professional level and above (excluding field experts) of the 11 United Nations organizations totalled 8,715 in 1976, of whom 82.3 per cent were men and 17.7 per cent women. By the end of 1981 the total professional staff rose to 9,372, of which 80.4 per cent (81.7 per cent in 1979) were men and 19.6 per cent (18.3 per cent in 1979) women. Thus, overall there has been some modest improvement in the status of women. See Annexes II and III.

12. Some organizations have made a significant improvement since 1976. For example, the United Nations has had a 33.7 per cent increase of women since 1976. FAO has had an increase of 28.9 per cent; ICAO 41.3 per cent; IAEA 31.4 per cent and UPU 28.6 per cent. These figures need to be observed with caution because the proportion of women to men is still unsatisfactory. Despite the significant percentage increase of women since 1976 in the case of IAEA, for example, the total percentage of women in that organization since 1976 has declined (in 1976 the percentage of women was 11.9; in 1981 11.3). Some organizations, such as ILO, show a percentage decline since 1976 for the number of women. In fact this percentage fell sharply between 1976 and 1979 following a reduction in staff due to budgetary contractions which resulted, for various reasons, in a greater percentage of female staff than male staff leaving the Organization. Since 1980 the percentage of women has been rising steadily and has now regained the 1976 level (15.6 per cent). UNHCR, on the other hand, showed an increase of 25 per cent in 1981 compared to 1980.

13. The United Nations continues to lead all other organizations in the percentage of women in the professional category, with 24.4 per cent. UNESCO ranks second in the UN system with 22.4 per cent. WHO, although the number of women in the professional category since 1976 has decreased, has 18.8 per cent of women in its professional category; IMCO 17.7 per cent; ILO 15.6 per cent, and FAO 14.6 per cent. It appears that those organizations which have shown some significant rise in total staff have recruited a higher percentage of women than before. This is supported by the figure covering the UN, FAO and IAEA.

14. The United Nations Secretariat has the largest professional staff among the 11 organizations. In 1981, the total UN staff in the professional category and above amounted to 3,820 which was 40.8 per cent of those employed by all organizations. Of the female staff, 50.8 per cent were employed by the United Nations. The five larger organizations, i.e. United Nations, FAO, ILO, UNESCO and WHO, accounted for 85.3 per cent of the total professional staff in 1981 and 90.8 per cent of the women in the professional category.

15. Since 1976, the number of staff has continued to rise at the upper professional level and decrease at the lower professional level (see graphs 1 and 2). For example, in the case of the United Nations, in 1976, there were 100 P.1s and in 1981 52. There are now fewer P.2s despite the increase in staff of about 400 since 1976. The rise in the case of the United Nations is at the P.4, P.5 and above levels. At the same time, there has been an important increase in the number of women at these levels up to the D.1 level. Above that level women have made very little progress. This trend at the upper levels of the professional category appears to be the same in most organizations. In the case of FAO and WHO, the number of women has increased at all levels from P.1 to D.1. The United Nations has three females at the Assistant Secretary-General level, including the post of Assistant Secretary-General for Personnel Services. ILO is the only other organization with a woman at that level. Further efforts should be made to select women for the highest professional levels. No woman has ever been the head of an organization of the UN system.

16. The percentage trend of females in the professional category is generally rising, but not always as fast as the increase in number of staff. This, underlines that more should be done to recruit females and promote them to higher levels.

17. In considering the progress made by the United Nations, it needs to be recognized that 24.5 per cent of all professional posts are not subject to geographical distribution; of the posts occupied by women in IMCO 57.1 per cent are not subject to geographical distribution, 41.5 per cent of ICAO, 31 per cent of WIPO and 13 per cent of FAO positions are in this category.

Graph 2

The figures in this graphe do not include WIPO

18. WHO has the highest percentage (14.65) of women assigned as field experts. UNESCO has 7.4 per cent; ILO has 6.4 per cent of women experts and 20 per cent as associate experts. The United Nations has 5.3 per cent and FAO 4.6 per cent. This is a category where more progress could take place.

19. Concerning female professional staff by nationality, in 1980, 110 countries were represented as compared to 103 in 1978. This is an important increase. As can be seen from Annex IV, there is a clear trend to recruit more women from developing countries; a significant number was appointed between 1978 and 1980. For example, Egypt's representation increased from 17 to 23, Philippines from 23 to 30, Singapore from 2 to 9, Jamaica from 5 to 12. Some developed countries have also progressed, such as the Federal Republic of Germany with 56 women compared to 42 in 1978, Australia with 23 compared to 16, Austria with 38 compared to 27 and Japan with 20 compared to 13. Recruitment in 1981 appears to have improved in some regions. For example, 26.2 per cent were women from Africa, 28.3 per cent were women from Asia and the Pacific and 30.8 per cent were women from the Middle East. Member States should make every effort to increase the number of women candidates in the professional category and above.

A. Targets

IV. ACTION TAKEN ON SPECIFIC ISSUES

20. In the 1977 and 1980 reports, the JIU suggested that wherever possible, targets should be established for the recruitment of women, and for the percent. age of women in the organizations. The 1977 report also suggested that in order to make targets more effective these might be expressed not only as goals of the organization as a whole but also in specific terms for each major organizational unit. In its review of the 1977 report, ACC accepted the idea of setting targets as long as they were reasonable ones. The General Assembly in its resolution 33/143 called on the Secretary-General to increase the number of women in United Nations posts subject to geographical distribution to 25 per cent over a five-year period, a target which has almost been met. Other United Nations organizations were also called on to establish targets. Other than the United Nations, only UNESCO, WHO and ILO have established specific targets. UNESCO has an aim of 27 per cent by 1982 (by the end of 1981 UNESCO had 22.4 per cent), and WHO has a target of 20 per cent by 1982 (by the end of 1981 WHO had 18.8 per cent). In 1981, the Director-General of ILO approved the target of 25 per cent as a desirable proportion of women in the professional category to be reached by 1985. This is a good target figure which will be a challenge to ILO in the light of its present percentage of women in the professional category.

21. The Inspector continues to believe that the setting of targets gives some momentum to offices of personnel as well as to the entire organization to recruit more women in the professional category. Also some organizations have taken very specific action to meet their target figures. For example, in the United Nations, the Assistant Secretary-General, Office of Personnel Services, advised the Department heads, in March 1980, that two out of five appointments should be women, with special emphasis at the senior level. This orientation was reaffirmed in February 1981. The Director-General of WHO issued new instructions to all programme managers to give particular attention to applications from women for vacant posts. He has made every effort to encourage women applicants. The Inspector recognizes that in some cases, such as the smaller technical organizations, and larger organizations that have major technical components, e.g. FAO and WHO, recruitment tends to reflect to some extent the proportion of women in professional posts in the qualified services of Member States. There is some increase taking place throughout the world in the number of women in these technical categories. Some organizations, such as WHO, may reflect a higher percentage of women in their technical categories than might actually be the case in many countries.

B. Equality of opportunity for promotion and career development

22. Resolution 35/210 requested that necessary measures be taken to implement fully the provisions of Part III of General Assembly resolution 33/143. Some of these relate to Tables 1, 2 and 3.1

23. Table 1, which concerns the participation of women on personnel, advisory and administrative boards, shows that there have been relatively few changes ex1 The tables referred to were not available for printing.

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