Given the hosting of the IBA’s Annual Conference 2024 in Mexico, it seems entirely appropriate to have the country’s newly elected president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on the cover of this edition of Global Insight. Following one of about 100 elections taking place this year around the world, Sheinbaum became the nation’s first female leader in 200 years of independence. This puts her in a strikingly small minority group: women who hold similarly significant positions of power.

Our cover feature, ‘Women in power’, addresses this issue head on. In the UK’s recent election, for example, women made up just 31 per cent of the candidates. In the US, women represent just 28 per cent of Congress. The UN says gender parity in these contexts is a long way off: achievable not before 2063 at the current rate of progress (or lack thereof). There are various reasons for this remarkable imbalance, but notable is the higher likelihood of women facing harassment than men in addition to female candidates facing rising levels of hostility and violence.

The detrimental impact on lawmaking of women’s underrepresentation is clear. ‘It’s proven that diversity is more profitable in all terms’, says Fabiola Cavalcanti, Diversity and Inclusions Officer of the IBA Latin American Regional Forum. ‘Women policymakers prioritise issues that benefit the most vulnerable in society, such [as] healthcare, welfare and education. As such, more women leaders seem to make for more equal and caring societies.’ There are many other benefits too, of course.

By instituting constitutional reform in 2019 requiring gender parity in elections at all levels, Mexico has led the way in an important sense. The country’s parliament is now split equally between men and women. The evidence of exactly how effective this will be largely remains to be seen, though Sheinbaum’s historic election suggests it could be genuinely transformative. And, if the UN’s pessimistic prediction is to be proven wrong and gender parity is to be reached in less than four decades, more countries need to take similarly bold measures and address the underlying causes of the current imbalance.