Today begins a key inflection point for one of the major decisions facing the UN this year: who will be the next Secretary-General?
Antonio Guterres’ second and final term comes to an end on December 31. By January 1, 2027, a new Secretary-General will be leading the UN. Today and tomorrow, we will hear directly from the four declared candidates for the first time as they take questions from member states and civil society at a public forum held at the General Assembly. I will be following the hours of hearings, posting updates to our new WhatsApp group. Later this week, I will publish a free episode of Global Dispatches and To Save Us From Hell about the key takeaways from these hearings.
But for now, I wanted to take a particularly deep dive into the selection process for the next Secretary-General. Warning: what follows is an insider, process-heavy discussion of international bureaucracy and multilateral diplomacy, for those of you who crave insider-y conversations about UN rules of procedure for picking the Secretary-General.
So, with that throat clearing…Here’s what to expect in the race for the next UN Secretary General.
