Center for Human Rights and Policy Studies (CHRIPS) and Saferworld

Summary

Frames prevention and direct, undelegated mediation as the key role of a UN Secretary-General, drawing on the Peru–Ecuador negotiation as a model, with emphasis on personal presence and trust-building rather than on institutional reforms.

Profile

Framing the Secretary-General primarily as a mediator, A-Baki places prevention and peacemaking first among her five priorities, highlighting it as the organization’s founding purpose. Asked about her first-year priority, she argues prevention requires "action, not reaction" with the UN present on the ground to identify pressures before they escalate.

A-Baki argues that mediation capacity must be structurally independent as a core role of the office of the Secretary-General, not dependent on uncertain voluntary funding. She emphasizes this independence as a precondition for effective prevention. She commits to traveling to where the wars are, sitting with all parties, and offering the discipline of sustained mediation.

She would apply the guarantor method she used in the 1998 Peru–Ecuador peace agreement to today's protracted conflicts: assembling a small group of credible, trusted states to accompany a process from first contact to final verification to building a durable peace. The method she describes is relational rather than procedural: bringing parties into direct personal contact and building trust over time. She rejects the language of win-win, arguing that durable settlements require mutual loss. Applying the model to Russia and Ukraine, she argues that the Secretary-General rather than external envoys should convene leaders at the UN to try and resolve conflicts. She identifies the absence of women from negotiating tables as a structural cause of failed mediation, describing their inclusion as an obligation, not an aspiration.

On transnational organized crime, she called for coalitions of affected states to convene through the UN, noting no state can address it alone. Her proposed solution focuses on state capacity and self-sufficiency rather than a security response. Areas where A-Baki has offered less detail include the financing and institutional architecture of prevention, mandate discipline and resource shifts toward preventive functions, and early warning as a system rather than a phrase.

Cairo International Center for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping, and Peacebuilding (CCCPA) and International Peace Institute (IPI)

Summary

Has no prior record on peacekeeping or peacebuilding. Focuses on prevention and mediation, argues that peacekeeping’s contraction is not in itself a failure, and commits to funding the first regionally led operation under Resolution 2719.

Profile

A-Baki has held no position related to peace operations or peacebuilding, and her vision statement appears to be her only public statement on these issues. Her treatment of peace and security centers on prevention and mediation rather than on peace operations. She argues that the decline of peacekeeping is not in itself a failure, since some missions “had outlived their usefulness.” The real failure, she contends, is that the contraction has not been matched by investment in the prevention and mediation of conflict, which are cheaper and more effective. She commits to placing the UN’s mediation and good offices function on stable footing rather than uncertain voluntary funding and to applying the “guarantor method” she associates with the 1998 Ecuador-Peru settlement to today’s protracted conflicts.

On peace operations specifically, her principal commitment is Resolution 2719. She describes its promise as unfulfilled, notes that the first test case stalled, and pledges to work with the Security Council and regional organizations to fund the first operation under it “without further delay,” arguing that a commitment made unanimously but then left unimplemented does more damage than no commitment at all. She frames this as a debt owed to longstanding troop contributors. She also commits to keeping the protection of civilians and respect for international humanitarian law at the center of the UN’s work in every theater. She does not address peacebuilding or the peacebuilding architecture.

ODI Global

Summary

A-Baki committed to keeping the protection of civilians and international humanitarian law at the center of the UN’s work. She has not spoken specifically on humanitarian action or humanitarian reform.

Profile

A-Baki has committed to keeping the protection of civilians and international humanitarian law at the center of the UN’s work. She stated she will use tools such as preventative diplomacy, mediation and early warning and will be active on the ground to prevent conflict. As a candidate for Secretary-General, A-Baki has not spoken specifically on humanitarian action, the Humanitarian Reset, humanitarian-specific aspects of UN80 or other humanitarian reform initiatives, nor does she have prior roles focused on humanitarian action.

Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and Southern Voice

Summary

A-Baki prioritizes country-led development, debt relief and practical financing solutions to accelerate the SDGs but without offering specific reform proposals. She supports broadening participation in AI governance.

Profile

A-Baki’s development approach focuses on strengthening national and local capacity. She has called for moving away from top-down implementation, with countries identifying their own needs and the UN supporting their capacity to respond. She has linked greater fiscal space to countries’ ability to invest in social and economic development.

With fewer than one-fifth of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets on track, A-Baki identified financing and delivery as major obstacles to progress. Her priority is to accelerate implementation before 2030. She has not set out what should follow the SDGs or how a post-2030 development framework should be shaped.

Debt is a major concern in her development agenda. She pointed to resources diverted from schools, health and green infrastructure to service debt, reducing the fiscal space available to developing countries. Her proposals include debt swaps and blue and green bonds, drawing on Ecuador’s experience, as well as extending debt swaps to education and health. A-Baki has also called for financial rules “crafted for an era long gone” to be rewritten. However, when asked directly how she would make the international financial architecture more representative and fair, including in response to higher borrowing costs facing African countries, she has not proposed specific reforms.

On artificial intelligence, A-Baki has said she opposes global rules being shaped by a small group of powerful states and private actors. She envisages the UN as a forum where all countries can help establish ethical, fair and binding guardrails. She has also presented AI as a tool that could be used positively for development, while acknowledging its implications for jobs and education. She has not explained how AI governance could reduce inequalities affecting vulnerable populations.

A-Baki’s campaign has not so far addressed how UN funding models or donor preferences influence development priorities, or how those arrangements could be changed to align support more closely with country needs.

Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) and GQUAL Campaign

Summary

A-Baki largely frames human rights through peace, security and development. She uses maternalistic framing to support women’s participation in peace negotiations without outlining measures to strengthen human rights mechanisms, funding, or a commitment d to gender parity.

Profile

A-Baki’s vision statement invokes the UN Charter, calling to “renew human dignity across all UN pillars” while highlighting the commitment to fundamental human rights, human dignity, and the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small. She has affirmed her commitment to the rule of law, stating that “we cannot give impunity” and “we have to follow the rules.”

She has described the UN’s three pillars as inseparable. Her approach, however, has primarily situated human rights within peace and security and economic development. She has addressed human dignity in relation to artificial intelligence and climate, calling for the UN to serve as a universal negotiating table where nations can establish ethical, fair and binding guardrails.

A-Baki has also emphasized women’s participation in peace negotiations, primarily framing their role through motherhood. She called women's presence "an obligation for us women, mothers," concluding: "We are the mothers that give birth to the men also. So we are 50-50." However, asked how she would use Resolution 1325 to secure Afghan women’s participation in dialogue with the Taliban, she did not provide a substantive answer.

On women’s and girls’ rights, A-Baki has emphasized economic stability and education as conditions for women to enjoy and defend human rights. She emphasized: "I'm not a feminist. I'm feminine."

A-Baki has not elaborated on human rights as an independent theme. She has generally returned to economic and security considerations when questioned. She has not discussed measures to strengthen UN human rights accountability mechanisms. Asked about increased funding for the human rights pillar, she did not respond, instead linking UN financing to trust in the organization.

On gender parity, A-Baki was asked twice about gender and geographic balance in senior appointments but did not address the question.

CIVICUS and Transparency, Accountability and Participation (TAP) Network

‍Summary

A-Baki presents civil society as a structural partner and commits to consulting and including women and youth and making the UN as an “open space.” She has not addressed shrinking civic space and anti-gender movements.

Profile

‍A central theme of A-Baki’s campaign is a recognition that the UN represents humans, referring to herself as a “humanist” and politically neutral, and committed to applying this philosophy to staffing. A-Baki has emphasized the importance of trust, particularly the need to re-establish it between countries and between the UN as an institution and its member states. Trust is framed as a building block for achieving results, which in turn facilitates greater investment in the UN system.

In both her vision statement and interactive dialogue statements, A-Baki has cited the importance of working with civil society. She has said that under her leadership the UN would become an “open place” for civil society participation and inputs, recognizing the role of civil society actors in bringing knowledge from national and local levels.

While A-Baki does not specifically reference the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) or Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agendas, in various statements she has named the importance of including women in peace processes and consulting young people across UN agendas. When asked about her commitment to gender and geographic parity within the UN system during the General Assembly interactive dialogue, she did not answer.

In her General Assembly dialogue, A-Baki noted that she does not identify as a feminist. Although she has spoken against gender-based discrimination, she has not commented on how the UN can protect norms and challenge growing anti-gender ideology. Further, despite ongoing references to her desire to work closely with civil society, A-Baki has not addressed shrinking civic space as a distinct challenge. She names the importance of human rights in principle, without specific observations on how to protect civil society actors facing restrictions or attacks.

Plataforma CIPÓ and SHE Changes Climate

Summary

A-Baki frames climate as a human rights concern, advocating climate science that respects livelihoods beyond ideological divides. She champions equal attention to adaptation and a fairer financial architecture, including through innovative instruments like debt-for-nature swaps.

Profile

A-Baki frames climate as a human rights concern, pointing to a lack of effectiveness and coherence in the multilateral response. She asserts: “No account of human dignity is complete without action on the changing climate,” and identifies population growth as a key factor worsening the crisis.

Despite numerous UN conferences, she argues that climate policy has failed to generate “practical, sustainable results” and has become “a political lightning rod” marked by ideological battles and “finger-pointing.” She argues that scientific consensus, although relevant, cannot “upend the lives of the very people we mean to protect.”

On this basis, she commits to a climate agenda “that respects the science and the livelihoods of ordinary people,” one that gives proper weight to adaptation and demands finance for the most vulnerable.

While mitigation and energy transition remain essential, she maintains “we owe equal attention to adaptation,” denouncing the shortage of investments in the Loss and Damage Fund. She ties adaptation finance to the protection of the most climate-vulnerable, noting that these countries are pushed “by disasters they did nothing to cause.” Responding to a question from the Alliance of Small Island States, she committed to treating Small Island Developing States as a priority and to conserving oceans to protect the human race.

Addressing obstacles to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, she highlights the debt burden on developing countries, pledging to “champion a fairer financial architecture” and to scale innovative and “win-win” instruments, “from debt-for-nature conversions to blended finance.”

A-Baki’s climate-related roles include Chief Negotiator of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative for oil phase-out in Ecuador and Founder/President of the Galápagos Conservancy Foundation, with relevant experiences in debt swaps and ocean protection reflected in her CV. Her CV also cites advocacy “for Indigenous environmental leadership,” but no practical examples are given.

Article 109

Summary

Of the current candidates, A-Baki's vision goes the furthest in calling for Security Council reform, stressing it must be “worthy of the 21st century.” She advocates for expanding the Council to include additional permanent and non-permanent members, and an “end to a veto” that turns the body into a state of “paralysis.”

A-Baki’s proposals are tied to her view that the UN is not playing the role it should in international peace and security.

Linked to this thinking is her aim for a larger role for regional organizations and smaller groups of “credible” nations in preventing conflict, serving as guarantors in negotiations, and managing peacekeeping. A-Baki also advocates for women to be at the table in peace negotiations. She is clear, however, that the decision to reform lies with Member States.

She commits to being forthright and transparent in her leadership, using the full powers of the Secretary-General when possible: “I will not be silent. Where I can convene, I will convene. Where I can press, I will press.” A-Baki does not discuss the Secretary-General's role in acting as the Charter’s guardian, however.

A-Baki raises the need to continue efficiency gains; focusing on mandates, merging entities, moving resources to the field, as well as stringent transparency. She resists efficiency gains that undermine the UN’s ability to deliver, particularly on human rights.

A-Baki envisions a UN that convenes on emerging challenges, including artificial intelligence. More broadly, she backs reform of the international financial system, endorsing a convention on international tax cooperation currently under debate. She also supports concerns by developing countries, such as exclusion from decision-making and high debt.

While A-Baki has not held positions in the UN system, she has relevant experience from her time as Ecuador’s foreign minister and ambassador to the US and France.

Oxfam International

Summary

A-Baki champions renewal through prevention, regional peace operations, Security Council reform and climate finance, drawing on diplomatic experience, while her maternalistic framing of women’s leadership raises feminist concerns.

Profile

A-Baki presents her candidacy around a “renewal” of multilateralism centered on prevention, mediation and practical delivery. She argues that “preventing is acting, not reacting” and proposes a more hands-on role for the Secretary-General using direct engagement, patient mediation and relationship-building to bring parties together and “forge common ground.” A distinctive decolonial element of her peace and security agenda is her commitment to “make Resolution 2719 real,” supporting predictable financing for regionally-led peace operations.

She also calls for Security Council reform, arguing that “the representation should be in a different way” and challenging a structure shaped by the “geopolitical landscape” of 1945. This reflects a critique of global governance structures rooted in historical power imbalances and colonial legacies, particularly the under-representation of Global South regions. Her development agenda connects debt, climate and biodiversity with innovative finance, while she supports greater recognition of indigenous environmental leadership.

Gender equality is part of her candidacy. A-Baki argues that women must be “at the table of negotiations” and in leadership. However, she states, “I’m not a feminist. I’m feminine,” and has said, “We are mothers, and we need a mother at the UN.” From a feminist perspective, this creates a significant tension: while advancing women’s representation, her maternal framing risks essentializing women as naturally caring and peaceful and narrowing political legitimacy through motherhood. It also raises questions about whose families and forms of womanhood are recognized within her vision of leadership. Defining women’s political contribution through motherhood in her position can privilege a cis-heteronormative model of family and marginalize women who are not mothers, as well as diverse gender identities, sexualities and family formations. Her agenda therefore offers important areas of alignment on women’s representation, prevention and regional agency, while leaving questions about whether her understanding of gender justice can accommodate the diversity of women, families and gender identities central to transformative feminist politics.