UN Women for Tunisia and Libya Director Begona Lasagabaster in TBS
On February 12, 2020, NGO Management master’s students had the honor of hosting Mrs. Begona Lasagabaster during their International Cooperation course. Mrs. Lasagabaster is the director of the UN Women Agency for Tunisia and Libya.
Mrs. Lasagabaster, a lawyer, former politician, and civil society figure started by giving the students a glimpse of her career as a former lawyer, former member of the parliament, UN consultant and lastly as the current UN Women for Tunisia and Libya director.
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women was created in 2010 in response to the UN General Assembly 63/311 resolution under the System-wide coherence. It supports the government and civil society in their national action plan for gender equality.
Like any entity, UN Women started slowly at first as it used to comply with the opinions of every state member. However, that was not very effective, and thus, moved to focus more on gender equality especially in conflict zones. Mrs. Lasagabaster affirms that «it is more dangerous to be a woman in a country of war than to be a soldier» and that if women are part of the peace agreements, peace would reign longer.
When asked about the key differences between working in politics and working in the UN, Mrs. Lasagabaster replied that, in politics, laws are created and implemented while in the UN they advocate and do not have a say when it comes to laws; Laws are there and cannot be changed. «Now I am doing politics from another perspective». She also clarified that the UN is not neutral but rather impartial. For example, they cannot say to a country what to do and what not to do.
The discussion moved on to corruption, especially the reasons behind the lower percentage of corruption among women when compared to that of men. Mrs. Lasagabaster stated that « women never had a close friendship with money».
There were also talks about the reasons behind the very low political participation of women and the challenges they face, for example, they find it especially hard to leave politics. It was concluded that this might be due to the fact that some people fear to lose the privilege and prestige they have while some others find it challenging to reintegrate themselves in the job market. One of Mrs. Lasagabaster’s pieces of advice was that «if you want to enter politics, first, make sure to have enough freedom to leave».
Feminism and gender equality were also discussed. According to Mrs. Lasagabaster, feminism is about having the same rights for men and women and that there are many approaches to achieve it. For instance, in Tunisia, many young unemployed men feel frustrated as they strongly believe that women took their jobs.
One final advice for the attendees was to always remember to keep one foot in the real world and not live in a bubble.
By Abir Tayari, vice-president of MANPO and NGO Management master’s student at TBS
