Following a period of consultation with partners and supporter NGOs, 1 for 8 Billion has put together a comprehensive set of resources which bring together (1) the formal qualifications and requirements for the role, drawn from the UN Charter, General Assembly resolutions, UN documents and applicable international frameworks, and (2) a person specification for the role based on these formal requirements.
1 for 8 Billion is committed to continuing to refine our approach to candidate assessments - please get in touch if you have feedback.
We hope the resources contribute towards a healthy debate among member states and civil society regarding how candidates should be assessed, based on objective, transparent criteria.
Click here to read the briefing
1. FORMAL QUALIFICATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS
The 1945 UN Preparatory Commission report holds that “the Secretary-General, more than anyone else, will stand for the United Nations as a whole. In the eyes of the world, no less than in the eyes of his own staff, he must embody the principles and ideals of the Charter to which the Organization seeks to give effect”. ¹
States added some definition to the enormous role described by the Preparatory Commission in the UN Charter itself, and have subsequently elaborated on it in GA Resolutions and other UN documents. This definition has included: stating it needs to act as the “the chief administrative officer of the Organization”, meet “the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity”, demonstrate independence, a “firm commitment to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter”, as well as strong leadership, managerial, diplomatic, and multilingual communication skills.
These elements have never been consolidated in an official job description or person specification. In the absence of official resources on the role, we have brought together the formally agreed elements of the SG position.
Read the formal qualifications for the role
2. PERSON SPECIFICATION
Selecting the next Secretary-General requires more than listing formal qualifications; it requires a shared understanding of how to interpret and operationalize the Charter’s standards and the expectations articulated in General Assembly resolutions, joint PGA–PSC letters and other guiding documents.
The objective criteria and desired qualifications identified by Member States in the UN Charter and official documents must not remain empty formulas. They should be given concrete content, clarifying how they apply to the role of the Secretary-General, in order to provide meaningful guidance both to candidates in presenting their candidacies and to Member States in evaluating them.
To uphold credibility in the process and reduce the room for undesirable politics, we need an objective, transparent criteria for assessing candidates. 1 for 8 Billion’s person specification is therefore grounded in the formal requirements and widely recognized competencies, qualities and desirable professional experience identified by Member States.
The goal is not to prescribe a profile, but to offer a framework that supports fair, merit-based, criteria-driven evaluation that reflects the needs of the Organization in a period of exceptional global turbulence.