The next Secretary-General will be appointed in 2026. The successful candidate will have a unique role in mobilising action to address global challenges and delivering for the world’s eight billion people. It is crucial that the appointment is fair, open, inclusive, and geared towards finding the candidate best able to rise to this challenge. That means giving all governments and people a chance to shape the process; not only the most powerful. That means ensuring candidates can focus on setting out a strong vision, rather than making backroom deals.
And it means making history by appointing a woman to lead the 80 year old institution. The UN’s normative power is waning and historical injustice can no longer be tolerated - we need a feminist woman leader who reflects the future we want and the UN we need to get there.
Read 1 for 8 Billion’s policy platform
The newly launched policy platform will drive this agenda forward. Entitled “A fair and inclusive process to appoint the next UN Secretary-General”, it sets out the campaign’s policy recommendations for the upcoming selection process including five policies Member States should adopt to ensure an inclusive process and a level playing field for candidates from all around the world:
Women candidates: After 80 years of men-only leadership it is time for a woman to serve as UN Secretary-General. The organisation sets standards and expectations for the world; it cannot lead us into a future of gender equality until its own house is in order. Member States should therefore only consider nominating women candidates.
A more transparent, more inclusive process: The next selection process should build on the best practice established in 2016. The Presidents of the General Assembly and Security Council must release a comprehensive joint letter which transparently lays out the process no later than the start of the General Assembly’s 80th session. They should also jointly work to ensure Member States and the public are kept up to date every step of the way; the results of any straw polls or deliberative mechanisms must be published.
Improved hearings at the UN General Assembly: Hearings with candidates should be held at the UN General Assembly, as they were in 2016 and 2021, but this time the process should go further. States and civil society representatives must be given time to effectively hold candidates to account.
For the many not the few: States should work together to jointly nominate candidates and should be willing to nominate candidates who are not their own nationals. All candidates should aspire to be co-nominated by a broad and diverse selection of Member States from all regions.
The Security Council should provide the General Assembly with a shortlist of two or more candidates from which a democratic selection can be made, as allowed for by the UN Charter and as supported by an overwhelming majority of UN Member States. We should question why so few successful candidates for senior leadership come from certain regions, certain nations, and certain backgrounds within nations; and the role global power dynamics, race, economics, and power more broadly play in limiting opportunities to succeed. States should task the incoming Secretary-General with commissioning a study into how systemic and structural barriers to attaining leadership positions in international institutions can be overcome.Campaigning with integrity: Building on the resolution adopted during its 77th session, the General Assembly should pass a resolution insisting that every candidate publish the sources and the amounts of their funding for their selection campaigns.
Candidates must publicly commit to uphold the Charter of the United Nations (in particular their obligations under articles 100 and 101 not to trade in political favours with Member States) and that they will honour the wishes of the General Assembly by ending the damaging practice of appointing successive nationals from the same state to senior roles. Likewise states must not seek to extract promises from candidates in return for their support.
Read 1 for 8 Billion’s full policy platform
To create the platform the 1 for 8 Billion campaign spent several months of 2024 on an extensive consultation involving interviews, written submissions, a workshop, and an online form, open to all, which received over 200 responses.
The policies are geared towards the role that states and candidates should play in the process. Future briefings will examine the role of parliaments, the media, civil society, and other stakeholders.
Thanks to generous seed funding from Open Society Foundations, this report was written by Fred Carver of Strategy for Humanity, and Ben Donaldson, coordinator of the 1 for 8 Billion campaign. The report was edited by Enyseh Teimory of UNA-UK, and approved and adopted by the 1 for 8 Billion steering committee in September 2024.
The report is dedicated to the memory of the irreplaceable Yvonne Terlingen.