On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia was elected to the executive board of UN Women, a new body which merges the activities of four previously separate UN agencies – with a vastly increased budget of at least $500m a year.

Saudi Arabia's inclusion in the 41-member board of an organisation that will promote "gender equality and the empowerment of women" is obviously controversial, since the kingdom probably discriminates against women in more ways, and more systematically, than any other country.

However, the election to the board was notable mainly for a campaign – ultimately successful – to exclude Iran. Iran also has a bad record on women's rights, but somewhat less bad than that of Saudi Arabia. If the Iranians deserved to be kept out, so did the Saudis, and the targeting of Iran clearly rather than Saudi Arabia clearly had a lot to do with international politics.

The question now, though, is whether Saudi Arabia's membership will actually damage the work of UN Women. Eman al-Nafjan of Saudiwoman's Weblog favours inclusion rather than exclusion. Shewrites: 

"I don’t believe much can be accomplished by rejecting Saudi Arabia. All over the world women are treated unequally and abused in differing degrees ... Yes Saudi Arabia is on the extreme side of the spectrum but that’s all the more reason to include it."

Saudi Arabia (along with other Muslim countries such as Pakistan) has often played an obstructive role on women's rights at the UN, but UN Women is not really a policy-making body but a support body. One of its main aims is "to provide coherent, timely and demand-driven support to UN member states, at their request, in their efforts to realise equality for all women and girls."

It does appear from this that the scope for obstruction by individual board members will be rather limited. But we shall have to wait and see.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 12 November 2010.