ONLINE: Michelle Bachelet Gets a New Job

In exciting news today, Chilean ex-President Michelle Bachelet will be taking the lead at UNWomen , the recently created UN agency dedicated to furthering the needs of global women. As reported earlier this summer, the establishment of UNWomen has come after years of advocacy from within and outside the UN, and is considered a triumph for the consideration of women's rights, development and protections by the international community. The agency brings together four existing UN agencies- UNIFEM, INSTRAW, UNDP's DAW, and the office of the special advisor on gender issues. The combined budget will see a significant increase, and the new organization is expected to be operational by January 1.

President Bachelet is not a surprising choice, and was an early consideration for the post. She provides the cache that the post of Under-Secretary-General deserves and requires. Previous women's agencies did not have a position ranked as high as USG, and so were limited in their access to the decision making bodies at the UN. Wikipedia tells me that she was ranked #15 on the 2008 list of the world's most influential people, for whatever that's worth. It's also significant that she's from the global south, and will be able to quiet some of the outrage that has been elicited by member states who (rightly) feel that the south is not properly represented in UN bodies.

Bachelet's background is impressive, but I was curious to took a closer look at her life, work and policies related to gender and conflict, to see if there is anything to be discerned from her experiences that allude to her ability to galvanize the international community and amp up dedication to fulfilling the goals the UN has set out. My knowledge of recent Chilean history is fairly limited, so my background information is mostly the result of a few hours of internet sleuthing.

Bachelet's personal history has undoubtedly given her a strong familiarity with militarism, conflict and justice. The army institution, and socialist doctrine, played a large role in her upbringing. Her father was an Air Force Brigadier General who was detained and tortured to death when Pinochet's regime came to power in 1973. After experiencing detention and torture herself, she sought refuge in Australia, and then Germany, where she pursued medical studies. She's been notably self reflective about the impact of her family history on her choices and path:

“Having experienced personally and through my family the tragedy of Chile is something always present in my memory. I do not want events of that nature ever to happen again, and I have dedicated an important part of my life to ensuring that and to the reunion of all Chileans.”

Upon returning to Pinochet's Chile, living (and attempting to work as a new physician) under his authoritarian regime certainly would have impacted her values related to freedom and international restraints on state sovereignty. Her decades of work as a physician and health advocate would also likely impact her understanding of the relationship between politics, health, and government. Later in her career, she continued her studies in the field of in military studies, defense, and military strategy. She received a political appointment as the Minister of Health, then the Defense Minister, then was elected president in 2006.

This strikes me as the portrait of a woman who is committed to healing, but understands the pragmatic reality of war. Although the fields of health and military strategy may seem like divergent topics of interest, I think the combination makes her an ideal candidate for her new UN post. Her biography suggests she has had intimate personal experience with a great deal of issues relevant to her post: she has experienced life under a dictatorship, she has witnessed the multifaceted and long term effects of a repressive regime, and she has participated in post-authoritarian democratic development. As a health practitioner, she has had on-the-ground experience with a breadth of issues, many of which were no doubt related to the conflict in which she was practicing medicine. Her academic achievements related to the field of defense, and her experience as the Defense minister, will help her understand the politics of intervention, strategy and militarism. And of course, her Presidency- notable for the precedent she set as Latin America's first woman President (or head of state not married to a previous leader) puts her in a position to garner the attention and political force that UNWomen needs to actually get things done.

All in all, this bodes very well for a USG who is strong on issues related to gender and conflict. I'm particularly compelled by her snappy remarks during an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations back in 2008, when she stated:

“The bottom line of all this is that those multilateral institutions designed more than six decades ago, essentially the U.N. system, are no longer fully adequate for managing today's global challenges. If these institutions are not reformed, and fail to reflect the diverse and complex political environment that prevails — prevails nowadays, they will be unable to provide the kind of governance that the 21st century calls for.”

In the same interview, she also puts forward her liberal policies on women's reproductive health:

“…when I was minister of Health — that was from 2000 to end of 2001 — we did that. We studied the after — the morning-after pill. We decided that it was okay. And now from that time on, it's — you can buy it everywhere.”

Open attitudes and innovative solutions to women's health issues, I think, are imperative to a successful global policy. If we aren't ready to think about new approaches to gender violence, sexual health and reproductive health, the MDG's are going to continue to be postponed. So that's another big point for Bachelet; she's practical, she gets it, and she's not afraid of making radical choices that she knows- as a doctor, a political leader and a woman- are in the best interest of the state. In her own words:

“And I believe strongly, not only as doctor but also as a woman, that in a country the role of a government is to assure alternatives, and every person with its own belief can decide which can be used.”

That sounds like someone I want in charge. Just from my very preliminary survey of her work and life, she strikes me as someone who is willing to make difficult, groundbreaking decisions and push for what she knows is right. She's been a victim of oppressive rule and a democratically elected leader. She knows what it's like to be at either end of the political spectrum. Now she's been given an opportunity to change the UN System that she claimed was inadequate two years ago. I'm really curious to see what she does first (and I bet I'm not the only one hoping that task number will be fixing that unfortunate acronym).