ASTANA — President of North Macedonia Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova issued a powerful call for gender-balanced leadership on the world stage — beginning with the United Nations during a plenary session at the Astana International Forum (AIF) 2025 on May 29.
President of North Macedonia Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova. Photo credit: Akorda
With the UN’s 80th anniversary fast approaching, she called on member states not only to pursue long-overdue reforms of the Security Council, but also to seriously consider electing a woman as the next Secretary-General.
“With the UN’s eight-decade milestone on the horizon, it is time not only to rethink its structures, but also its leadership — and that means giving serious consideration to electing a woman as Secretary-General,” she said.
She also stressed that the General Assembly must reclaim its rightful place as the UN’s principal representative body — not only as a forum for debate and deliberation, but as a true engine for policy making.
Her remarks echoed those of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who reaffirmed the urgent need to expand and modernize the UN Security Council. “It should reflect the world as it is now, not as it was,” he said in his address.
Siljanovska-Davkova strongly endorsed this position, emphasizing that structural reform must go hand in hand with a cultural shift toward inclusion and accountability.
“As we agreed last year, the Security Council must be expanded, reformed, and democratized to ensure it is more accountable and more capable of upholding international peace and security,” she stated.
Siljanovska-Davkova’s remarks were also part of a larger reflection on the role of women in global security and peacebuilding. She emphasized that the “feminization of politics” is not about displacing men, but about rebalancing power.
“I am not going to, nor do I intend for a woman to replace a man. For me, feminization means humanization. It means not forgetting about the perfect Creator, about nature, and about balance — so that there are enough women and enough men,” she explained.
She praised the forum’s theme, Connecting Minds, Shaping the Future, stressing the importance of collective thinking in the face of global crises.
“There’s a wise saying — a thought is faster than light. Now we must think faster, together, to respond to the urgent challenges of our time,” she said.
Drawing on former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s phrase, she described the current global situation as a “systemic earthquake” — a geopolitical and geoeconomic trauma that threatens the very foundations of the post-WWII order. Today’s overlapping crises, she argued, are symptoms of deeper tectonic shifts that are eroding the principles that once held global governance together.
“The rule-based multilateral system is now fractured under the weight of growing multipolarity. The United Nations is drifting dangerously close to a League of Nations moment,” she noted.
Instead of uniting to tackle shared threats — from climate change to digital inequality to armed conflict — she warned that the international community seems to be regressing. Some realists, she noted, argue that the international rules-based order is already beyond repair — that global treaties are dead weight, and retreating into regional blocs is the only rational path forward.
However, she warned, that logic paves the way to a dystopian future — one of intensifying geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalry, further exacerbated by the climate crisis. In such a world, politics is no longer “the art of the possible” but a brutal contest of domination, echoing Harold Lasswell’s definition: “who gets what, when, and how.”
“Or, we can listen to him — to the call for wisdom, not just power,” Siljanovska-Davkova concluded.
The general partner and sponsors of the Astana International Forum are the Samruk Kazyna National Welfare Fund, ERG and Freedom Bank Kazakhstan. The official sponsors are Kazakhmys, Karachaganak Petroleum Operating B.V., KAZ Minerals, North Caspian Operating Company, Tengizchevroil, Alatau City, Baiterek Holding, VISA, Stepnogorsk Bearing Plant, Caspian Oil, Qarmet and RG Gold.
