Here’s a 🧵 for UN delegations busy drafting talking points for meetings with UN leadership and speeches for the General Debate.
What do you imagine Ralph Bunche and Brian Urquhart would have made of the Summit of the Future and the armed conflicts raging in Ukraine, Israel-Gaza-Lebanon, and Sudan? Here's how we can move closer to the legendary standards the two set:
The times have certainly changed since the 1950s and 60s, and with them, the appetite — particularly among the most powerful states — to support the identification and recruitment of effective leadership. It is clear that to tackle the world’s most pressing problems, we need the most accomplished and empowered professionals.
Some of them are in office at the UN today, and I have been an admirer and a champion of their leadership. But too many others fall short of the immense challenges they are tasked with.
@nyuCIC's UN Senior Appointments Dashboard shows that from 2017 to 2023, 50% of appointments still went to the Western European and Others Group (WEOG), and 42% to nationals from high-income countries. Bunche and Urquhart, from the US and UK respectively, were part of this tradition. If WEOG still seeks to dominate leadership roles, its governments should ensure the UN benefits from their best in dedication to service, professionalism, inclusion, and ambition. Otherwise, it's time to open up competition globally.
Underrepresented regions, too, must resist pushing for change purely for representation’s sake. The issues are too urgent for tokenism to masquerade as empowerment; support your best and leave the rest at home!
It should be common knowledge that a major part of the UN’s present ineffectiveness lies in how leadership is identified, recruited, and supported. This is a critical but often overlooked insight in the many (mostly justified) calls for reforms, which sometimes mistake leadership shortfalls for institutional or mandate problems. Leaders at UNGA should demand leadership for UN funds, programmes, and specialized agencies that is capable and credible in responding to today’s challenges — and they should follow through with commitments to that goal.
Many of the countries leading in voluntary funding are freezing or cutting budgets for economic and political reasons. Even with these constraints, they can still help the UN. They can join in the call for raising the quality of human resources and enhancing knowledge management mechanisms and technologies. This is essential if the UN is to deliver real, tangible impact with limited funds.
Critically, donor states must also commit — even internally — to avoiding the “projectification” of the UN into irrelevance by prompting a race to the bottom among agencies, duplication of work, and inadequate scale. Strong leaders combined with low-quality financing leads only to frustration and early departures, as real performers always have multiple opportunities available to them.
Appoint the right leaders, provide core funding, and support them as they work to deliver real solutions!