The world rightly celebrates the election of a woman as Head of Government.* In 2024 it is Claudia Sheinbaum elected President of Mexico and Judith Suminwa elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2023, it was Evika Siliņa elected Prime Minister of Latvia and Borjana Krišto in Bosnia and Herzogovina. In 2022, it was Dina Boluarte in Peru, Xiomara Castro in Honduras, and Giorgia Meloni in Italy. In 2021 it was Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa in Samoa, Kaja Kallas in Estonia, and Samia Suluhu Hassan in Tanzania. Since 2020, more women have also been appointed Head of State* in  Barbados, Dominica, Greece, India, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Malta, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uganda.

Each year, these women join a very small group who are running a tiny subset of the world’s countries. In 2024, there were just 11 countries with women elected Heads of Government and 15 serving as Heads of State, with five serving in both roles. As powerful as these women leaders and many of their countries are, they still comprise just 6% and 10% of all Heads of Government and State respectively. In 2024, there is less than one woman for every ten politicians holding positions of the highest authority shaping nations and the way they interact on the world stage.

Female Heads of Government are concentrated in higher income countries with ten of the 16 countries designated high-income or upper-middle-income by the World Bank (Barbados, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Marshall Islands, Mexico, and Peru), while three are lower-middle income (Honduras, Samoa, and Tanzania) and three low-income (Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Togo).

Similarly, 15 of the 20 Female Heads of State are in high-income and upper-middle-income countris (Barbados, Dominica,  Georgia, Greece, Iceland, Kosovo, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Moldova, North Macedonia, Peru, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Trinidad and Tobago), three are in lower-middle-income countries (Honduras, India,  and Tanzania), and two in low-income countries (Ethiopia and Uganda).

*The Head of Government is the de facto political leader of the government, and is answerable to at least one chamber of the legislature. The Head of State is typically representative, serving to symbolize the unity and integrity of the state at home and abroad. Roles can differ depending on national models of government.

Of all regions, Europe has the most female Heads of Government and State by a wide margin – 14 of 31 (see map). Currently, the lower income countries and regions who arguably have the most to gain from the “Female Leadership Dividend” have the least opportunity to realize those gains.

If we could wave a magic wand and achieve 50% women leaders overnight, there would be 66 additional women elected to run countries, for a total of 97. We could see women running the most powerful countries in the world – the USA and China – and women running the most fragile countries in the world – South Sudan and Somalia. We could see women running oil-rich nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran, and nations struggling to translate natural resource wealth into development gains, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa. We could see women negotiating ways out of the bloodiest conflicts of our time in Europe and the Middle East, from both sides. We could see women grappling with the greatest challenges to the future of our species – pandemics, climate change, and nuclear war.

But we don’t just lack women leaders of countries. There is also a deficit of women running corporations, universities, and an often overlooked but highly influential sector – religions. Less than 6% of the world’s leading companies have female CEOs (Fortune Global 500), just 24% of the world’s leading universities have a woman at the helm (World University Rankings), and less than 5% of the most influential religious organizations are run by women.

Unleashing a wave of female leadership on the world could unlock substantial benefits for democracy, development, governance, justice, and peace and security. But these benefits are left on the table all the while the world tolerates such low levels of female leadership. At the current rate of change it will take hundreds of years to achieve 50% female leadership. For how much longer can the world afford such a high level of unrepresentative and sub-optimal leadership?