Why are so many women leaving the world stage?

On a recent speaking tour in Australia, Barack Obama offered up his idea on how to turn the tide on more than a decade of democratic erosion, to steer the world on to a path of sustainability and peace: "I am actually convinced that if we could try an experiment in which every country on Earth was run by women for just two years... I am confident the world would tilt in a better direction."

- Jonathan Yerushalmy

Obama's interviewer - former Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop - replied, saying female leaders would only need six months. Data, however, shows that even the far more modest goal of parity between the sexes in global leadership remains distant.

Fewer than a third of the UN's 193 member states have ever had a female leader and, while there has been a huge proportional rise in women at the top of global politics in the past 20 years, the numbers remain incredibly low.

Only 12 UN member states have female leaders, down from 17 in 2022. Research from UN Women suggests that gender equality at the highest positions of power will not be reached for 130 years. The growth in the number of female leaders has plateaued.

In January, Jacinda Ardern resigned as prime minister of New Zealand saying she "no longer had enough in the tank" to do the job. Moldova's Natalia Gavrilita quit as prime minister in February, blaming crises caused by "Russian aggression". Nicola Sturgeon stood down in February after more than eight years as Scotland's first minister, saying the "time was right".

This month, Sanna Marin - the world's youngest prime minister - lost a closely fought election in Finland.