Comment.

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If ever there was a case of one step forward and two steps back, this was it. First, we hear the heartening news that Iran has appointed its first woman government minister since 1979. Then, just days later we learn that--along with Egypt, Sudan and Cuba--it made determined efforts to block the plan to develop a United Nations agency for women. Bad move, shocking judgment call and one almost universally, and predictably, greeted with the phrase: "It's very surprising to see Cuba on that list."

While most countries of the Middle East region are working tirelessly to promote the cause of the female halves of their populations, it is ill-considered moves such as this one that reinforce widespread international perceptions that women of the Middle East and Africa are little more than chattels or slaves of their menfolk. Of course people were surprised that Cuba was on the list--it is ostensibly a socialist country with a strong tradition of gender equality and opportunity. But Egypt, Iran and Sudan, as almost all blogs on the subject said: 'Well, what do you expect?'.

What possessed Iran, Egypt and Sudan to take part in such an ill-advised move is beyond comprehension. Insiders say the three regional Muslim states, plus Cuba, withdrew their support for the new agency in order to garner support for a demand that poorer nations be awarded increased power over UN funds. This may, in essence, be a laudable aim but this was not the time or the place to put a spoke in the wheel of one worthy cause simply to further the cause of another. Of course such jiggery-pokery is far from being unknown at the UN but the men--and, trust me, they were men--who took the decision for three Muslim nations to attempt to block support for the massively publicised and vital new 'super agency' for women, are donkeys, not diplomats.

It was in 2005 that the idea of a UN 'super agency' for women, to tackle gender-related issues such as women's property rights, violence against women and HIV/Aids-related issues, was first raised. A panel investigated and subsequently recommended merging four existing agencies: the UN Development Fund for Women (Unifem), the Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues, the UN Division for the Advancement of Women, and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (Instraw), under a single umbrella organisation with a budget of around $1bn.

The proposal had been before the General Assembly since 2006 but the decision by "the Gang of Four' to oppose it at the vote in mid-September looked certain to scupper--or at least delay--the plan going ahead.

Canadian Stephen Lewis, the co-director of an international organisation fighting for HIV/Aids victims and a longtime supporter of the proposed agency, told the press he was "deeply agitated" by efforts to delay the women's agency by "using women as a foil for other issues".

He went on: "Women are always expendable in the minds of some countries but we will keep fighting." Lewis was just one of many who couldn't resist linking the women's agency issue with the Middle East's record on women's rights

In the event, good sense prevailed: Cuba, Sudan, Egypt and Iran were dealt a crushing defeat and the new UN Women's Agency will go ahead. And what of the men responsible for their part in, not only attempting to quash plans for a vitally important new organisation, hut also creating a public relations disaster that has fuelled an international feeding frenzy of anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Iranian, anti-African feeling? Their punishment will be to continue to live an expense account-fuelled lifestyle of wealth and privilege in New York and/or other attractive cities around the world, promoting their countries and their kinsmen, and--presumably--making their mothers proud.