The United States on Friday urged the United Nations to select a new Secretary General who can take the world body “back to basics”, as diplomats began informal talks on finding a successor to Antonio Guterres, whose term ends in December 2026.
US deputy ambassador Dorothy Shea told the Security Council during a debate on the organisation’s future that the process should be “purely merit-based,” with “as wide a pool of candidates as possible” considered for the top job.
Ms Shea said Washington, as the UN’s largest financial contributor, would continue to prioritise ensuring a “strong return” on its investment and expected other countries “to do so as well”.
“This is a critical moment for the UN,” she said. “Effective leadership will be essential in advancing needed reforms. The United States looks forward to a secretary general who shares this vision of returning the UN to its founding purpose of maintaining international peace and security.”
Ms Shea also said the next UN leader should “reject initiatives that fall outside the Charter’s founding purpose, prioritise accountability and transparency and respect state sovereignty”.
Recalling the words of former UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjold, Ms Shea said the "United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell”.
“The UN of today is no longer guided by this founding mission and has lost its way,” she added.
Greece’s UN envoy, Aglaia Balta, stressed that the selection of the next secretary general should be conducted with transparency, inclusivity, gender parity and balanced geographical representation, ensuring a merit-based process “worthy of the organisation”.
The position has traditionally rotated by region, with Latin America and the Caribbean next in line.
“We maintain the hope that during this process, the leadership experience and profiles from the developing world will be duly recognised for this vital position, particularly from the Latin American and Caribbean region,” Panama’s deputy UN ambassador Ricardo Moscoso told Council members.
Under UN rules, the Security Council recommends a candidate to the General Assembly for approval, although the process is influenced by the council’s five permanent members – the US, Russia, China, Britain and France.
A 1997 General Assembly resolution stipulates that “due regard shall continue to be given to regional rotation and shall also be given to gender equality”.
Regional balance has gradually widened the pool of candidates – after three of the first four UN leaders being from western Europe, subsequent appointments have been from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Eastern Europe, the only regional group never to have produced a secretary general, is widely considered to be deserving of its turn, but the region’s polarised politics and strained relations with Russia may complicate matters.
