As the United Nations prepares to select its next Secretary-General, this timely conversation brings together diplomats, civil society leaders, and experts to examine the challenges and opportunities surrounding the process. The panel explores the role of the Security Council and General Assembly, the push for a more transparent and inclusive selection process, and the growing campaign for the UN’s first woman Secretary-General. Panelists discuss the qualifications and leadership qualities needed at a moment marked by geopolitical tensions, humanitarian crises, climate change, and declining trust in multilateral institutions, while reflecting on the candidates, political dynamics, and prospects for meaningful reform of the UN’s leadership.

with,

H.E. Mr. Rein Tammsaar
Permanent Representative of Estonia to the United Nations

Dr. Jean Krasno
Chair, Campaign for a Woman Secretary-General

Jesselina Rana
Lawyer and UN Advisor, CIVICUS Alliance (New York)

Moderator
Stéphanie Fillion
Editor-in-Chief, Envoy magazine

Opening Remarks
Dr. Eli Karetny
Deputy Director, Ralph Bunche Institute

Transcript

Eli Karetny — 00:09
Good evening, everyone. I’m Eli Karetny, Deputy Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. It’s a pleasure to welcome you tonight. This important conversation about the future of UN leadership, I’d like to thank our co-organizers, the United Nations Association of New York and Envoy Magazine, and our sponsor Webster Bank, as well, of course, as our esteemed panelists. I’m honored to have this opportunity to say a few words about our institute’s longstanding commitment to the mission of the UN before inviting Ann Nicol, the executive director of the United Nations Association of New York, to introduce Stephanie Fillion, tonight’s moderator. Our institute is named after the former UN diplomat and the first American African American Nobel Peace Prize winner, Ralph Bunche. We were actually founded as the Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations, as we expanded our activities over the years and became the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, we’ve continued to work closely with the UN through academic research projects like the UN Intellectual History Project and the Future of the UN Development System Project. Two major initiatives led by our former director Thomas Weiss, who earned the informal title the Dean of UN Studies among international relations scholars. We continue to do important work leaning around the UN. We support the human rights efforts of NGOs like the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, which is based at the Ralph Bunche Institute. In October, we’ll be hosting a conference with our partners at Columbia called “Communicating for a Better World. Where participants from academia, civil society, the diplomatic community, and the UN will explore how communication can strengthen the UN and advance solutions to global issues, Dr. Stefan Chalco, who’s here with us tonight, is the creator and conference chair. We’ve also launched a project on UAP studies and international security, which supports our UAP program on UN engagement, and which is now in discussions with the Seoul Foundation on ways to promote international cooperation and scientific research of the UAP phenomenon, as the subject of UAPs gains greater legitimacy in academic and diplomatic fora, we will be on the front lines promoting increased international cooperation in this subject and explore ways to work with UN agencies and partners. This is all to say that the Ralph Bunche Institute continues to support the mission of the UN, and we believe the current international landscape will benefit tremendously from a strong UN prepared to take on a leadership role in international affairs. That begins with the selection of a new Secretary-General. The choice of a new Secretary-General is not simply a matter of filling an institutional position; it is an opportunity to reflect on the kind of global leadership our times demanding, and on the kind of United Nations the world needs. We are living through a period of profound uncertainty. Conflict and humanitarian crises continue to affect millions. Climate change is reshaping communities and economies. Inequality, displacement, pandemics, technological disruption, and the threats to peace and security are challenges that no country can solve alone. In this context, the next Secretary-General must be a leader who can build trust across regions and political divides, who can listen as well as speak, who can defend the principles of the UN while bringing countries together around practical solutions. That is why it is so crucial that women candidates are at the center of the selection process. Women have long demonstrated leadership in diplomacy, peace building, human rights, development, humanitarian action, and national and international institutions. Yet women remain underrepresented at the highest levels of global decision making. This is not only a question of fairness, although fairness, of course, matters. It is also a question of effectiveness. The leadership process that excludes or marginalizes women excludes experience, expertise, and perspectives that the international community urgently needs. Women candidates should be considered on their qualifications, vision, integrity, and ability to lead, not constrained by outdated assumptions about who can occupy the world’s most prominent multilateral offices. The credible, transparent, and inclusive selection process would send a powerful message: the United Nations is prepared to embody the equality it has pledged to advance.

The future of the UN will depend not only on who leads it, but also on whether its leadership is prepared to take on current challenges and unexpected. Coming events. Let us therefore approach this moment with ambition, openness, and a commitment to genuine inclusion. Let us ensure that women candidates are fully part of the conversation. That the next chapter of the UN is defined by stronger cooperation, greater trust, and renewed hope. Thank you. Please welcome Ann Nicol, who will introduce tonight’s moderator, Stephanie Fillion.

Ann Nicol — 05:30
Thank you, Eli. I’m Ann Nicol, Executive Director of the United Nations Association of New York, and you probably heard from me several times to make sure that we arrive here today. So thank you very much for coming. First of all, thank you Eli for hosting us in this beautiful space, and also sponsors our sponsor is Webster Bank, who you will enjoy the food that they have sponsored tonight. Thank you to our panelists and Stephanie Fillion, who will be doing the moderating. Stephanie is editor in chief of Envoy Magazine, a publication for exploring the pressing questions facing international cooperation and global governance. Stephanie is a New York-based reporter specializing in foreign affairs and human rights, and the United Nations correspondent, her work was published in outlets like Forbes, Foreign Policy, Radio Canada, Le Devoir, and the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. She has a master’s degree in journalism, politics, and global affairs from Columbia University, and a B.A. in political science from McGill University. In recent years, her U.N. coverage received U.N. Correspondents Association awards, as well as a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media. She writes in French, English, and Italian. Welcome, Stephanie. Thank, you so much. Very much so, a invigorating conversation. Thank you.

Stephanie Fillion — 07:12
Thank you so much, and I also want to thank the Ralph Bunche Institute for welcoming us tonight and for the Organizing the organizers, so it is my pleasure to welcome our group of panelists tonight. And I do want to say a word about Magazine because I think that it was distributed to all of you. So it’s a special issue that we produce to the Secretary-General raised with the idea that it would be a bit of a legacy that we leave behind because that phrase tends to be covered more as a breaking news whenever there’s a new candidate we cover the can who the candidate is, but we thought that wasn’t really covered with the depth that was required. So I hope you enjoy reading it. And some of our computers are here tonight. Stefano, who’s presented the East Under Secretary-General, and Antonio Viterish, and how he did, and others should be here as well later on. All right. So with our panelists, so we have the pleasure of having with us tonight, Rein Tammsaar, Estonia’s permanent representative to the UN. Thank you so much for being with us. Jesselina Rana, who is a lawyer and legal advisor for the Silicon Alliance, which is also in the steering committee of the Women campaign. Thank you for being with us. And Dr. Jean Krasno is the chair of the campaign to align with the Women Secretary-General. Thank you.

We have about 45 minutes for the panel, so we have a lot to talk about, and then it will be followed by a reception. So please make sure to stick with us, and we’ll also open the door for questions. But I do want to open up with Ambassador Tammsaar. From the from member state point of view, we it feels like we’re both early and late in this campaign. In a way, we’ve been not talking about it for so long, but there is still a lot of steps that need to be done in order to shoot the next secretary-general, we’ve seen already two struggles. A third one is expected. So, can you tell us how those do you think we are to choosing the secretary-general, and how is it possible so far?

Rein Tammsaar — 09:36
Yes, thank you very much, and even thank you very much, of course, for the Ralph Bunche Institute and other organizations. I think it’s very important today and very time because the process is ongoing. And you may recall that the whole process formally started actually on 25th of November when the joint center, The General Assembly and President of the Security Council was sent out, and of course this meant that a lot of process started. So, and what happened is that basically the first candidate already presented himself next day because the further question, and then our candidates. We have now opened another eight candidates, but the last candidate so far came in on 17 for focus. So basically, some of the candidates, you know, already campaigned around the world and you know, did their tours and so on, and ours just started, and of course we don’t know whether more candidates will show up, and of course the fear in some circles is not you know a certain point about the black horse throwing into race and you know, and then never move on what’s going to happen. So yeah, nine months, eight candidates, one position. I think the good thing is that all eight went through the General Assembly and having security plans, and I think it’s fair that all candidates would have the same procedure, and we really push it forward because I think it’s really important that member states have a feeling. You know what is candidates, who they are, and what kind of graduates and individual things. So. Security Council indeed had two rounds of non-cover with struggles, and just to remind that in 2006, when Ban Ki-moon was selected, it took four rounds, and when Guterres was selected in 2016. It took six rounds. So keeping this in mind, where we are, and indeed there is rumors that there will be one stroke call maybe before Halloween, maybe one after. So maybe in October, and October was a significant month because both Ban Ki-moon and Guterres were selected in October. So I would say if and it’s a big if I would say Security Council aims to agree a candidate in October. There is a possibility to do it, but if not, then this means that we are maybe somewhere in the middle of the process, and again, you know, it takes time, of course, to organize six straw polls and cover straw polls at the end. So it is difficult to say at the moment where we are, but I would say by taking into account the results of a second stronghold, the relative high count of discouragements each candidate received, and the fact that no one received 9 encouragements. There are three, so to say, frontlines. But frontlines, I would say, soft front lines, and there are my dear colleague from Guyana Tarwin, and Mr. Grossi, but again, I mean, we believe that there might be still more candidates coming into the process, and we may see it really in I don’t know coming days or weeks. And of course, you are aware of many other names with whom the speculation was going.

Stephanie Fillion — 14:16
Yeah, thank you so much for that. And maybe continuing on the brilliant, you know, Jesselina, I’m sure you have a lot to say about that because one day I think it’s been quite involved in the process of transparency and accountability of the candidates. In 2016, we saw a process that was a little bit more open than in the past. It’s still not very much an open process, but can you tell us about how it’s been so far for you watching this selection process? And you know, are there any frustrations, or are you happy about anything that’s maybe better? Thank you so much.

Jesselina Rana — 15:00
We’re globalized civil society organizations, and One for 8 Billion is One for 8 Billion. Sorry, my auto group, and One for 8 Billion is a collective campaign in hospital society organizations who came together many years ago. Once called One for 7 Billion campaign, has now evolved with the One for 8 Billion campaign. courses that we were partnering together with a bunch of other colleagues, what we are seeing, of course, and maybe illustrates some things that we’ve been seeing, one of our main priorities for this year for the campaign was to make sure that we don’t regress back from what we saw last 10 years ago when we move forward and we build on some of the progressive ideas that we saw many years ago. So when the process started, even before the letter from the General City and President of the Security Council, as Professor mentioned, the resolution was adopted last year during the January set. We reached Conway and also looked at and they were together and we had for sure we had more students and this was in fact the first time that a basic timetable for this process was indicated and I think that has been very helpful for us to know that the process should have started as part of the timetable in the last quarter of 2025 and has to commence in the last quarter of 2026 with the Secretary-General taking position on the first of January, and that has been helpful for us to understand in terms of when and where the candidates are going to be nominated. You know when we mobilize the civil society, how do we look at resources when we start tracking or getting processes that we want to prioritize, but beyond this, what we also saw, as Ambassador mentioned through the joint letter, was indication that there has to be a CV for every nominated candidate. There has to be a budget statement, and there has to be funding that has been fired by every outside of the nomination, publicly available on the UN website, which we of course also put it on the one for you, and these have been really important guardrails as we’ve seen going forward with the campaign that we did not really see last time. But there are of course, like you said, frustrations. There are early frustrations. We continue to monitor, and we continue to learn from so that processes after this become more progressive. Just to list very three specific ones, of course, we’ve heard about later on gender, and we’ve seen people had the UN for 80 years, 81 years now, be led exclusively by an all-male battle, and one of the ideals for the one-way billiard is, of course, transparency and accountability, but it is also for a feminist woman secretary in general. And we were really hoping the language around gender and geography were reflected in the resolution that was adopted. It was reflected, but in terms of due regard to be given by member states, which means it doesn’t hold any by having authority when member states are making its decision. And as we’ve seen, the last time this process was into consideration, and that the geography and gender position made its way into the final decision. So we are frustrated by that, and we continue to hope that member states give due regard to both geography and gender this time around. The second. one, the second point that we were hoping for more progress was on the General Assembly’s role beyond what we like to call rubber sand rule. If we go back to the charter and if we look at Article 97, which illustrates the role of how Assembly General is selected, it essentially says that upon the recommendations that the council, the General Assembly selects the second generation, and as we’ve seen, Progeny Five Security Council members have a decisive vote, and that is taken forward with the generals. So to counter this process, to make sure that the General Assembly themselves have a bigger role in the process, we may see specific recommendations. One was for two candidates to be sent by the Secretary of Security Council to the General Assembly. So the General Assembly, at the end of the day, has the vote to select the person.

The other thing that we have also sort of identified and pushed for member states to consider was for the formal publication of struggles that happen at the Security Council, for the data that’s been shared with the U.S. foreign one-to-1 billion or any other society, it’s really informal data that is given to us friends with the council, good friends with these are not formal indication struggles, and of course we continuously talk to presidents of the Security Council that are changed every year, change every month about this, and there’s of course the pushback. And through the strongholds, what we also wanted was for the generalists also to have strongholds for an indication of what is the rest of the membership beyond 15 on the council. About in terms of in terms of the potential candidates, that also brought a lot of pushback into the maintenance. And thirdly, finally, I’ll stop there. I think this one is a very consequential one, and the challenges of which we continue to see is that the resolution will not mandate a nomination of trade, which means a candidate can come at any point, and this becomes challenging not only for social safety, but it also becomes challenging, perhaps even unfair, if someone would like to vote for candidates who are already held through public scrutiny, for member states who are expected to vote on candidates who may not have gone through the same process. And far enough for the world to, it seems for these peoples, if we look at the charter, it seems unfair to be the peoples that are going to end up being led by someone simply aware at the last moment that we may not have faced the same publicity to me as stressed. So leave it there and back to you.

Stephanie Fillion — 20:56
All right, I do want to thank your friends in the Security Council because the numbers have been writing on them. Yeah, and the resume is quite interesting actually. So when you go online and kind of read like Michelle Bachelet’s resume, and just imagine, I like to imagine her sitting in her line as president, and what are the highlights for her presidency must be an interesting exercise. With speaking of Michelle Bassolin, all the other women running this time around to the Secretary-General. So I want to introduce Jean Krasno because you were involved also 10 years ago pushing for Women Secretary-General. They were amazing candidates 10 years ago, but Antonio Guterres also was also very qualified, got the job. So how much do you think we are this time around to get to getting a woman elected?

Jean Krasno — 21:47
Well, thank you so much, and thank you all for me and for the organizers and sponsor. And this is a great opportunity to be able to talk about this. And yeah, he started the campaign to elect Women Secretary over 10 years ago. We were hoping at that we would have a good opportunity. There were 13 candidates at that time 10 years ago, and seven were women, and six were bad, so the numbers would indicate, you know, that the women were having a chance, and they were outstanding women, really fantastic. But in terms of straw polls, which we’ve been looking at now and talking about, in the straw polls that took place at that time, no women were in the top two positions. It was always men and golf volunteers were in the top positions. So right now, in the first two strongholds that we’ve seen, the women have held the top two positions. They switch places, so Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett is now in the last call was in first place with Rebeca Grynspan in second, and previously it was the first. But the women are doing well, and so there are eight candidates. Five of them, three are men. The men have not been polling well in the straw polls. So now the ambassador was speaking about the colored ballots, colored ballots, and to explain that is that these drawables have been everybody fills out a ballot that’s always in color in the next time around France currently, and there may be color ballots, which means that the five permanent members will be given a different color. So then you’ll see if the discourages are from a permanent member, which means a meeting. So the concern is right now looking at the straw. I can’t remember. Even though Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and Rebeca Grynspan are voting the top two, as you said, none of them have gone. So in the previous droplet, Rebeca Grynspan had 10. So she dropped a bit. The concerning part, though, so the way they vote is encourage, discourage, and no opinion. So it’s not a yes no type of thing. And what concerns me is that so there’s so many discouraged, and we don’t know discouraged. So if it’s a non-permanent member, we don’t have that much to worry about. But if it is a permanent member, we have a lot to worry about. So it is such a political decision. It’s such a political decision. We’re hopeful. We’re more hopeful because the top two positions are being in the strongholds are the women, but it’s not sufficient to really know. In terms of the role of the General Assembly, I would like to point out that the General Assembly will be voting to approve, and it is a simple majority. I was pleased, but it’s a simple majority, and of those present and voting, so people don’t want to walk out. But a few years ago, when Boutros-Ghali was elected, that was because the Africa group, which has 54 members, the largest group voting bloc at the New England, send to the Security Council. If you don’t give us an African candidate because we’ve not had one, then we have enough numbers to block this in the GA. And the Security Council listened, and they nominated Boutros-Ghali. And then when Boutros-Ghali only certified in terms because he had a problem with one of the permanent members. Then the applicant said, “Wait, we only got one five in terms. You have to give us another applicant”. And so then they nominated Kofi Annan, and he served two five terms. So the GA could step up and say if you don’t, because of woman, that we have the numbers to block it. And I’ve been asking around, you know, at various conferences and so on. Is there a move in the General Assembly to actually step up and do that? And there does not seem to be that kind of.  Just one other quick thing before we I’m about to open it up to questions is that the nominations have been very different this year. Many country, many candidates have been nominated not by their own country, so with Michelle Bachelet, originally she was nominated by Chile, but she knew with the elections coming up shortly after that Chile might drop their nomination.

So she very cleverly got Mexico and Brazil to co-nominate, and now Chile did drop out, but she’s still nominated because she has Mexico. So that was something completely. So, that’s what María Fernanda Espinosa is from Ecuador, but she is not nominated by Ecuador. She’s nominated by Antigua and Barbuda, and Baki Abaebaki, who was the last one to be nominated, was nominated by the Tonga, which is not country, we had another very interesting thing happen. Is that one of the first nominations was Virginia Gamba, who’s from Argentina, and she was nominated by the Maldives. Now everybody in the beginning said Maldives. Why not Argentina? Well, Argentina had nominated Rafael Grossi, but Argentina apparently put some kind of pressure on the Maldives, and they withdrew their knowledge, and that is awesome. So this is really all obligator, and you know, kind of a joke. So it’s hard to be forget about any of them. So I hope that generates questions.

Stephanie Fillion — 29:02
Yeah, it is very. What also is interesting is that two candidates come from Ecuador, right? But none of them are … All right. Thank you so much. And I would love to go back to Ambassador Tammsaar because you know I think we heard a lot of the dynamic between the Security Council and the General Assembly. So you are not on the Security Council. You are not on the Security Council right now. So I would love to hear about the dynamics. And you know, do you feel like it is a rubber stamping exercise more than anything, or do you feel like Russian, so to say?

Rein Tammsaar — 29:45
Yeah, good question. Questions. I would I would just say that I think that you know from the point of view of the five members really the. Here is about different types of maybe even worse. So, if I’m working as a one team and they want to be in full control of both selection process, and we actually saw it first during the introductions on revitalization resolution, where I have to say that there were many relevant ideas how to make process more mass, more private, and so on. But many of these suggestions never made it to a final text simply because they were objected by default members. We’ve also seen how some of our default numbers were really, critical when it comes to BJ’s president of the General Assembly performance, because I think that she genuinely tried to bring more transparency in this process, and she was heavily criticized, which for me frankly is an indication that she did it. And I feel of course sorry about rotation happening today, generally whatever like you and your colleague from Bangladesh, but I think actually different too. So I would say that if we want to have an impact, then the wide membership need to really to step up and get over. It’s absolutely clear that we are not selecting secretary-general for governments. We are not selecting Secretary-General, not even for 15. We are selecting Secretary-General for entire membership, and that’s a totally different story. And you may know that there is a group accountability guidance of 27 member states, Australia is proud to lead within this group being the called strand on the selection and avoiding of SG, and that’s why, frankly, we were working very directly with one of our billion during the legalization resolution, but also tough development, and indeed, I think the central role of the General Assembly, and that was a reference to after seven. I think it’s a value because indeed, I mean, we can’t represent. Yes, of course. No, problem in this. But I would say that we. I would say the main problems start revolutionary, but nothing revolutionary happens in Japan in many ways. So I feel like we have to do it on this and try not to fight back. So it cannot be simply formality, and I think that general assembly needs to be convinced that they are appointing the right person for jail. They have to be convinced, and that’s a big deal because frankly the general assembly is the most democratic body of so I would I would maybe three points or two…  this comes from our collaboration is that what the General Assembly could do, and the first one is indeed General Assembly must be able to assess the level of support for candidates or entities among our membership, and this could be done through advisory votes or other far more mechanisms. Doesn’t matter. But I think that this is something that General Assembly needs to step up and try. We will see how the new presidential general assembly will approach. The second thing is that before making the final decision on appointment, the assembly should hold an additional dialog with the candidate or candidates who were proposed by the Security Council. I think it’s fair because it’s you know it’s a final stage and frankly the dialog that had happened in the previous stages of selection process might not be indicative because as well, who would reveal their real interest and ideas if you know what you could get a red accountability? So I think if you looked into the initial statements of all interviews, it’s a lot about. The whole future of organization not so much for obvious reasons because they are afraid that they will get a record immediately from the Security Council and then they will take it to the next stage. And the third point is why the Security Council should really recommend more and more. I think that we’ve been pushing for this. It’s like you know running against the wall, frankly. But I think that this would make the whole process totally, agree. But at the moment, one of the other, and of course, EU would have several candidates.

EU would have a role of the General Assembly, this would change the mission statements a lot, because then there would be no fear of the red car and fronting five, and then candidates would really elaborate about the political nature of the organization, how they want to lead the organization, and what would be their first steps here and there. We don’t see it at the moment for this reason. So yeah, I would say that there is a there is definitely a role for General Assembly to play. We’ll have to see whether this is going to happen or not. I don’t have a crystal ball, but of course we will continue to push for additional transparency and the mobilization of offering that process, because I mean, UN is not in a good place. Absolutely not. So it’s so important who we will select as a nice sector again. It looks to me that P5 are really interested to have more of the secretary than general, and that’s one of my colleagues that put it that P5 are really looking for a fixer, while the rest of the membership are really looking for a little bit forward help to stop the decline of organization and to bring it a new, so to say, bring it back to political relevance. Voilà… Thank you.

Stephanie Fillion — 37:21
Thank you so much. And yeah, in our upcoming issue, one of the questions that we asked was, “What can the p5 still agree on? And one ambassador in the Security Council right now, the main answer was the only thing they agree on is preserving their privilege, including privilege of choosing the next editorial, basically, that’s the one thing that they seem to be very important on in the negotiating process. So, Jesselina, what do you think of the recommendations, and like, what would you encourage people to do? Thank you so much.

Jesselina Rana — 38:00
As much as you said, I think one of the few conversations between the NIT security minister, including the five, was for the for the general assembly storms that would potentially indicate the preference of the general assembly, and we received extreme pushback from members of the council, you know, with indication that what would happen in the world where the permanent five would want a certain candidate and the best general assembly would want a certain candidate, but I think that itself is reflective of democracy and what the general assembly should essentially be there for the democratization thing, right? And I think we need to stress on this fact. Of course, we’re talking with member states on the generalist, one of the security council, but we are also towards the end of this process at the moment, and so much of what has happened and is yet to happen. Also, its dependence on the leadership ambassador mentioned the role of the PGA, and it’s interesting because we have the second general selection process that essentially started from September last year till the end of December. But the PGA’s role was from September to September, so we now have the Green PGA who has the discretion to decide how to proceed with the candidates who do come up with? Will he do the same dialogs? Will he have the same manner? Will he have done one of the new candidates? Some of the all of the candidates have been part of the town hall because they were nominated after the town hall. So what is the process, and do you really believe these conversations will be sort of qualified in the resolution, but it didn’t. So we do see that level of discretion on the rest of them, and you know, of course, the role of the key fire critique and non-critique also visibility when what happens. And the second, of course, as I mentioned, is you know the surprise candidate realms does exist. There is no nomination project, and that becomes the challenge. Challenge not just for students, but also for civil society, for us to understand how do we track commitments of candidates going forward. How much capacity do we have at the moment? We’ve been as part of One for 8 Billion and civil society women are part of the One for 8 Billion campaign. We have policy profiles for every candidate. We’re looking at the British student, a British student, but also every conversation we’ve been part of. We’re looking at it through the lens of climate, gender, youth, civil society, humanitarian aid. Really looking at what are the commitments that they’ve been making, and what do we hold them accountable when they when they take office on the first of January. So it really is a matter of leadership at the moment, leadership of embassies, leadership of human of the president of General Assembly, and of course the role of civil society in public to really critique, and we have these conversations not just at the UN, these conversations also at the national capital. A lot of these conversations, unfortunately, don’t leave the walls of the UN and these walls around the UN. Like how many people in that African countries are talking about this process, so I think we also need to reflect to take this conversation back home and be able to have these conversations.

Stephanie Fillion — 41:32

Thank you, Dr. Perasson. Can you talk a little bit about the women candidates? So you talked about what the layout of the land was after the last rubble, but maybe can you tell us specifically about the women that we see because they all bring very different type of experiences to the table.

Jean Krasno — 41:50
Okay, thank you very much. Yes, I would like to talk about why you know because I’ve been interviewed for a different time. Well, why a woman? And then my response is, what is the problem here? So I think what has been evolving is that women have different experiences. There’s, you know, intelligent. They have vast experiences now in terms of having been presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, defense ministers, finance ministers. So over the years and decades, women have been gaining more education, more experiences, and they now are really at the top, and so why not elect a woman who is just as experienced and just as brilliant and so forth as any woman? So, but women do have different life experiences, and over half the world’s population are women, and women need a voice. They do need a voice. We talk about regions representing regions and giving regions a voice. Why not half the world’s population, the women, have a voice? And I think that’s really, important because when you go, if you go to the Commission on the Status Appointment, which I go every year and sit in a number of the different panels, you hear of experiences that women of all ages go through that nobody pays any attention to. Many women around the world are not allowed to own property. You know that’s a shock to us here. Of course, women can own property. No, they can’t even own a bank now in some countries. Where I attended a panel where they were talking about in certain countries that women can’t get sanitary equipment for themselves, and it and if they can, it’s taxed. You know, it’s becomes prohibitively expensive. Why do we hear about that? Why don’t we do something about that? And so women do have different experiences. The other thing, which is, I think, an advantage for the obstacles that women constantly work to, is in a society which is very much child dominated, is you have to find you have to find solution, and you get that skill of this is an obstacle. There’s a solution, and I’m going to follow you. And those women who have risen to the top, which we are considering now, are women who have done that. They’ve not had an easy path. They’ve, you know, faced obstacles, and they have used this. Of finding ways to resolve it. The other thing that I want to say is, what are we looking for in a woman candidate? And I think one of the important things for the UN is that woman needs to risk management, because the UN needs that kind of leadership that is going to draw attention, they have to use their position as the bully pulpit, but also as a moral compass, and so they have to be able to they have to be able to communicate with the media, and they had to want to do. So there have been some secretaries general. I point out Kofi Annan, who really felt it was his responsibility to communicate with the media. He invited the press to the residence often and had dinners and lunches. He went even to the different channels and stations. He was interviewed frequently, but part of it, of course, is that he was tremendously articulate. He spoke beautifully, and in the last segment of this general, maybe not have that kind of clarity that speak and that charisma, but so we need a woman, and we have some really wonderful candidates that have a charisma that do want to work with the media, and we see from their in-depth dialogs that they can communicate well, and they can they can be that kind of leader. And also, I think it would be inspiring. I mean, it would draw so much attention throughout the world. What the UN woman, and in the begin the first 100 days, she’s going to get a lot of attention. So the other thing that all of us have to do is, if a woman is elected, we have to stay with her. It’s not just to work to get a woman elected, but all of us have to stay with her and help her. You know, get a media attention, even advise if she would let us, but you know. So continue to work with and make it successful.

Stephanie Fillion — 47:30
All  right. So I do have more questions for the panel, but I did want to give people in the audience an opportunity to ask question. Okay. So I see that we got all the time.

Attendee 1 — 47:51
Good afternoon, Stephanie. I’m a UN ECOSOC NGO representative. I have a question. Something you just said. I’m going to miss her deeply, Annalena Baerbock. She is the U.N. PGA that just got down. I have a question for you. You said we need someone. Annalena Baerbock was the prime example, Her Excellency Amina Mohammed, Prime Minister…, His Excellency Tammsaar himself on the .. All of these people had in Her Excel. All of these people have made a great example of what we need, okay, and without the UN, we are nowhere, okay. But my question is, how do we come together? Because the world is fragmented right now. How do we come together and actually get behind the ever chosen? Because right now, what’s most important is that we get behind whoever goes in. Okay, and but at the same time, Dr. President, what she said is very important. We need a person like an Annalena Baerbock, who’s been from the Tonight Show. Every time you looked around, I loved that Annalena was somewhere around the world that she needed to be, and she made sure that the UN was front and center, and that it’s not trying to be perfect. And the only thing I want to ask you is, how do we bring that? And even if the person doesn’t have all that, how do we empower the next SG in that way? Thank you very much.

Attendee 2 — 50:05
Hello, hi. My first chance is primarily taking the leaves that would be from. Do you think that before they were falling to the same pattern that we fall into the expensive judgment, how to standard that would judge that we don’t count on? Because someone started talking about issues, I think the questions about context in terms of what they do, not something that says women have experienced because most society women are because of that, women see a lot more. Like I tell my students, if you’re dealing with women, it’s probably going to be 10. You still can get two because women see a lot more when they see one. So I think they already do need position to do that kind of position because they understand. So my question is that how do we avoid those people. We want to start judging women a little bit differently, setting standards will be higher, and looking at looking at them a little bit more closely because it was the race of all men. We’re talking older man has to has a hero store. We just automatically achieve as a long conclusion. So because I think part of the problem in terms of women not knowing that spare level, it’s us, you know, kind of subjecting them to extraordinary criteria for that. There will come off. It doesn’t necessarily be that. So how do we defeat them? We have to.

Attendee 3 — 52:11
Hello and thank you for this panel. Two questions, so I guess you want to decide to answer one. My first is what is happening with Carolyn Rodrigues. I was in the room during the Bloomberg event, and she actually held extremely high higher than any other candidate at that point. And also, speaking of the United States, we owe dues. And so, how is it that the United Nations allows sort of the amount of dues that the United States owes to still be in the position of power to making this decision. Thank you.

Stephanie Fillion — 52:57
Okay, so should we answer? Yes. Okay. So I think it’s essentially how do we empower the next Secretary-General? Not always that very important question of you know women coming in power sometimes not at the best, and we know that the next Secretary-General is going to inherit an institution that is not doing exactly well, and also question about Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, and also doing land finance. So I know Ambassador, you want to start maybe address one of them or all three?

Rein Tammsaar — 53:35
Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know. These are difficult questions, especially how can we come together in this very fragmented world. If you look on different regimens that have been conducted by Security Council or General Assembly, you know we see that it’s it’s not very easy actually to come together. But there are some examples. So I agreed with point on Brisbane, but for me personally, we’re going to make also another point. It’s really important. Of course, we are we’ve switched a little bit towards the profile of the possible profile along the next SG, and I would say for representatives of very small country coming from as we call it a seismic geopolitical region Diplomatically, I would say that not less important is impeccable track record of the candidate when it comes to principles of international law in China. This is absolute non-probable thing. Works because I think about it. If you know this will be challenged every single day, every single day, and not only might be fun to keep sitting on the road. So I think that this is really important. But you know, apart from you know all the virtues of someone. I would say you know it needs to be a senior seasoned politician. I would say politician because I think that you have to have a political animal with political instincts. This is my personal, and I think that political politician would manage better with situation. But this is of course, and frankly, we don’t have capacity or fantastic. We don’t have capacity. We don’t have a deficit of bringing people down, so I think that this historic injustice when it comes to not selecting female needs to be right. I hope that I’m not sure, of course, but I agree with you about a thing that actually when we negotiate the resolution, I think the spirit makes genes to be Roman was better. But I agree with you, but I think that it started to fade away, and maybe the main reason, obviously, was that indeed some foreign countries been dropping into this and preferred to say that basically, so of course we can always testify. Please, so it’s you know this is what that happened. But to our purpose, I mean I mean reality is why P5 plays very low. role. The rumors and the fear and thinking that I hear from the depths of the secretariat is actually that you know that would be a gentleman’s agreement between three big countries, and this will be lower. I’m not saying that this is the way forward, but this is not the end. I think that people are afraid, but this is the reality. So I think that’s why our NGO obligation is first of all to push into a different direction, to push for a more active and permanent role of assimilation. But I would very much agree with you. If we continue to discuss this topic here in the novel, we have to take it out of this bubble and really force somehow, or you know, try to generate interest towards the general public and so on. Because I think that UN is really in a very bad shape. So it’s so important to control. So voilà, I would stop here.

Stephanie Fillion — 58:51
I mean, ultimately, you mentioned an ambassador. You said you know the Berlin Five. I was from the next Interior General. It goes back to 193 members of the generosity, but also basically goes back to a billion controls, right? Serving other people, and that’s where I tell you the strengthening also needs to be dropped. So, Jesselyn, did you want to answer one of the questions?

Jesselina Rana — 59:13
Sure. Thank you so much, Stephanie. Thank you for the questions. I’m going to try and not to jump in on one answer and try to touch upon thing, but I think I do want to look at it from a slightly different perspective. For me, fragmentation of opinion, or fragmentation, or division within opinion, and conversations around different geopolitical interests is not always a bad thing. Having the ability to have different opinions means there is a active and likely democratic process going forward. So this is what I always like to say when we’re looking at. I come from Nepal, and one of the conversations we have often times within the feminist conflict, for example, there’s always differences, especially amongst younger generation. And a lot of people look at that and say that is this going to discourage the feminist legally in a country like Nepal? And I like to take the you know the other one would say that fragmentation of opinion or division of opinion is what is going to. So I think it’s important for us to consider that, especially when we’re talking about you know we the peoples and our beliefs in the UN system. We should be able to critique it. We should be able to look at things from different perspectives, and that brings me to what I think should be one of the qualities of the next Secretary-General is to look at constructive criticism as well. Is if the Secretary-General is not going to look at criticism, is not going to address the critiques that are coming from people around the world, then the space in the UN system will not be will not be notified, and it’s not just for Secretary-General. I think it’s also for leaders within the UN system, whether member states, President of the General Assembly, a lot of whom have been politicians in their own countries and have had criticisms in the world on them as well. And this is something that the UN needs to take into account if you want to build trust amongst the general public. You need to be able to take the criticisms head on and say that we’re going to be different. We’re going to change. This is how the policy is going to change. On what we’re hoping for, you know, with the conversation going forward, we’ve also been working with a lot of civil society at the regional and the national level, hoping for these conversations to be also part of to be part of this idea that the secretary-general’s role is important for people all over the world, the feeling trust. with multilateralism. We need to renew how multilateralism delivery, and we also need to renew this idea that yes, the UN was going to stop wars, but it has three different groups. A lot of which has made progress in the past 80 years. It is for the conflict prevention, but it’s also for sustainable development. You know, whether it is vaccine delivery aid, these things are happening in the coordination. We need to bring that up. And as we mentioned, we need a communication strategy from the government which is much stronger, more friendly to younger people who are sort of taking forward these conversations in their own right, but on a woman’s time, I think it is more than enough time for us to lead to lead different parts of the world. But I think even the conversation about will the gender assembly stand up and say this is a woman’s time? I’m not sure because if you look at the numbers of how many women have led everybody represented in missions here in the UN, or how many women have spoken at general assemblies. It is a concerning number. I wish I had the facts and figures with me right now, but Jira would have some fantastic report that audience all of this. So you know, it is time for women to lead, not just at the UN, lead everywhere. I think tidying is changing, and we are part of a part of the process where my predecessors told me that in 2016, the conversation about a feminist woman leaving the UN was not even something that we know much about. So, a small way that this conversation is very much lived right now.

Stephanie Fillion — 1:03:18
Thank you. Dr. Krasno, I believe you have the final word.

Jean Krasno — 1:03:22
Thank you. Well, all the questions have been really absent. I do agree with you on being Mohammed. I had hoped that she would be nominated and be a candidate. She’s really outstanding. She’s been deputy secretary-general and overseeing SDGs. I think she’s been great, but she has unsaid she’s not rubbing. She’s very clear about that. Maybe she already knows from the inside out different all the jobs, but also there is a strong movement that can be somebody from Black America and not necessarily enough. I also want to respond to Laken’s comment about the higher expectations. You know that’s reality. We can’t change that. There are higher expectations of women, and therefore that’s why, as civil society and the academic community, we if a woman is elected, we have to stay in the game. We have to help that woman achieve what we want to achieve and be there for her. The issue of feminism is that because we pushed for a woman secretary-general 10 years ago, all the maiden candidates and the men, the women candidates said, “Oh yes, I’m a feminist”. They all said that I’m a feminist. Oh yes, likely a woman. Because I’m a feminist, so when Antonio Guterres was elected, I knew who his leader was for his transformation, and I got in touch with her and I said, “I would like to meet with him”, and she said, “Okay, Tuesday at 10”. I was shocked. Okay, yes, fine. I’ll be there. And he did meet with me, and I said, you know, I understand you reflectively. We’re trying to have women that we really support you. This is great, but because you announced that you were feminists, I would like you to encourage to encourage you to nominate women to the high-level positions that you do have in employment, so directors, assistant secretary-general, undersecretary-general, and so forth. And he said, “Yes, I will do that”. And I said, “I’ll help because we have a list of highly qualified women. I have 99. I wanted 100. I didn’t have one. I had 99, and I can bring that this to you with photos and bios and contact information. And what would you like to be next?” And he said, “Well, I’ll have this time meet with you next week.” And I met with her, and I gave her on a flash drive, I had you know portfolios. I suggested certain people that you should look carefully at, and within about nine months, they had more. They had 51% women in these top positions. So I thought, okay, we accomplished something, but they said you know on rural feminists, I said, “Okay, I’m gonna take advantage”. They accept that. So, but there are higher expectations for a woman, and we just have to accept that, just like we have to accept that the woman has to get elected by the be fine, and so if they’re strategic in how they answer questions, I’m all for it because they have to be diplomatic. They have to understand what the stresses are and what they’re about to face. And I want to understand how we value and how they’re strategic. And some of the candidates have been really good at that. We will assess. We will assist the members of the council and the members of the general assembly, and any kind of move forward you want. We’ll be there. We’ll talk. We travel, but it’s up to home states to make that decision. Very strategic, because that what you have to do, and you have to be smart enough to get grounded. So I’m I’m all okay with having to have those kinds of answers because you have to get elected, right? And they have to be politicians, right? I totally agree with that. I would like a bigger ball to get. I really would like, in general, I thought the big balls she gave and the GM set up, and I hope, and perhaps the ambassador even helped.

Stephanie Fillion — 1:08:20
Well, perfect timing, and you can continue the conversation, maybe because I would like to invite everyone continue the conversation in private, because we have a reception that’s waiting for, and we have everyone till 9p.m. But I would like to thank our panelists for helping me with all this process, and also for the Ralph Launch Institute for hosting us and all the nicer board as well.