How to Ensure Election of the First Woman Secretary-General: A Daunting Challenge Before the United Nations

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Opinion by Anwarul Chowdhury (new york)
Monday, April 14, 2025
Inter Press Service

NEW YORK, Apr 14 (IPS) - Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the UN and Chairman of the UN’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee in 1997-1998 that approved Kofi Annan’s first reform budget.On 21 March 2025, the 69th session of the Commission for the Status of Women, popularly referred to as the CSW69, concluded its two-week-long annual meet which commenced on 10 March.

It is considered to be the largest annual gathering under the United Nations umbrella of women activists from various parts of the world representing mainly their civil society organizations. This year an astounding number of over 11,000 participants registered on the NGO CSW69 Forum platform.

This year’s session, publicized as Beijing+30, focused on the status of the implementation of the Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. Some of the civil society activists reminded that 2025 was also the 25th anniversary of the pioneering UN Security Council resolution 1325 adopted in 2000 highlighting the need for recognizing the women’s positive contributions in the area of peace and security.

This year for the first time the civil society events organized parallel to the CSW69 included the issue of electing a woman Secretary-General of the United Nations (UNSG) in its 80-year-old existence. Two such events focused solely on the dire urgency of electing the next and first woman UNSG.

The first deliberation on this subject was held on 5 March as a pre-event for the CSW69 and was titled “A Historic First? Tracking State Responses to Having a Feminist Woman UN Secretary-General” and sponsored by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), NYU School of International Studies and 1 For 8 Billion.

The second event was held on the last day the CSW69 titled “Gender Equality at the Highest Level: Electing a Woman Secretary-General” sponsored by WomanSG campaign and the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS). I was invited to speak at both of these events.

The incumbent Antonio Guterres, a former Prime Minister of Portugal, is scheduled to end his 10-year-old two-term tenure on 31 December 2026. The decision to elect the new UNSG is expected not earlier than October of that year. Article 97 of the UN Charter mentions that “… The Secretary-General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. He shall be the chief administrative officer of the Organization.”

The UN Member States may have taken the last sentence of this article too literally and elected only men as UNSG. As we all know, the Charter of the United Nations, when signed in 1945, was the first international agreement to affirm the principle of equality between women and men.

I recall Eleanor Roosevelt’s words asserting that “Too often the great decisions are originated and given shape in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.”

It is a reality that politics, more so security, is a man’s world.

Talking of political participation of women, sadly the United Nations, being the greatest champion of women’s equality and rights, sadly its own record is not something which we can be proud of.

To assist the UN move in the right direction and assert its credibility, in September 2012, a “Call to Action” was issued to world leaders gathering at the UN by IMPACT Leadership 21 and co-signed by me as the Founder of the Global Movement for The Culture of Peace (GMCoP) – and reiterated in 2016 - asking for urgent action, particularly for the appointment of a Woman as the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.

In its eight decades of existence, the world body has elected ONLY MEN to that post, as if only men are destined to lead the United Nations.

In an opinion piece titled “The Elusive Woman Secretary-General” published in the IPS Journal on 14 October 2016, the day after election of the current Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, I expressed my frustration saying that “The Security Council members were totally insensitive to a groundswell of support worldwide for a woman as the next Secretary-General.

They advanced the legacy of ignoring the 50 per cent of humanity in their action. This is an absolute aberration of the system whereby the 15 members of the Council impose their choice prompted by P-5 pressure and manipulation upon the total membership of 193, not to speak of the wide swath of civil society opinion and activism for a woman Secretary-General.”

I went on to ring the alarm bell by cautioning that “It is so very unfortunate that in the selection process politics has trumped women’s equality, violating UN Charter’s Article 8 which underscores the eligibility and equality of men and women to participate in any capacity in all its organs – principal or subsidiary.”

In another opinion piece published on 20 June 2011, a little more than five years before the earlier one, titled “Ban’s Second Term: The Case for a Woman Secretary-General”, I wrote that “And the most important “reform” that is needed for the choice of the U.N. leader is in the mindset of the Member States.

At this point of time in human progress, it is a shame that in the 65 years (that was in 2011) of its existence, the U.N. was not able to elect a woman to lead. Not only that, but there has been no candidate even nominated to be considered for election.”

Continuing I wrote that “Notwithstanding all the U.N. resolutions, treaties, declarations and pronouncements asserting the equality of women, it is a pity that the U.N. has kept 50 percent of humanity out of consideration for its highest office. The organisation is undoubtedly poorer as it restricted its choice only to half of the potential candidates.”

I also added that “The suffering image and credibility of the U.N. in the eyes of the international community in recent years underscores the increasing need for effective and committed leadership that puts the organisation before self and is not solely triggered by ‘command-and-control’ mode.”

Coincidentally these words are increasingly valid at the present time. There are certain reality-checks which need to be kept in mind in connection with the election of a woman SG.

For example,

- In 2016, none of the P-5 has voted for a woman candidate when there were a number of accomplished ones to choose from.

- Geographic rotations among the five regions of the UN Member States for the SG’s nomination are NOT followed in the Security Council as it is done meticulously in the election of the President of the General Assembly. P-5 decides unilaterally.

- A Member State may publicly support a woman SG in principle but may decide to vote otherwise for political reasons. Secret ballot would not let us know how the country voted.

- Another accompanying reality is that a Member State may vote for a woman to begin with but changes the vote if its vote is needed for a decision in favour of a man. Again, secret ballots keep us in the dark.

- P-5 meets for coordination outside the UN premises more often than envisaged. SG’s election is a major issue needing such coordination.

Now the big question is how to ensure the election of a woman as the next UNSG considering all the known or hidden realities. Member States - and I mean all 193 of them, not just 15 belonging to the Security Council – need to fulfil their role and responsibility accorded to them by the UN Charter for the appointment of the UN SG.

I have three suggestions to offer:

First, easiest and most natural choice for getting a woman elected SG is for the Security Council to nominate the current Deputy Secretary-General, a woman, a staunch believer in the feminist principles, a competent, respected leader, acclaimed as the midwife of the SDGs and above all, knows well the workings of the Organization. In case you wonder about the name, she is Amina Mohammad hailing from Nigeria.

Second, In recent times, names of a number of women from the Latin America and the Caribbean regional Group (GRULAC) of the United Nations are being floated asserting that, according to rotational practice for the post of UNSG, it is the turn of that Group to provide the next UNSG.

That situation would facilitate election of a woman UNSG on two conditions, one, there has to be a unanimous agreement among the Security Council members that it is GRULAC’s turn; and two, the GRULAC members should decide to nominate ONLY women candidates to the SC. In that case, the choice for the SC is restricted to only women candidates from GRULAC.

And finally, probably an outrageous but, at the same time, still workable Third suggestion

If the none of the earlier suggestions work in getting a woman SG, the General Assembly, which decides upon recommendation of the Security Council, should, by a big majority, reject the “man” candidate nominated by the SC.

Thereafter, the SC is likely to deliberate and assess the situation and hopefully change its nomination to a woman. If the SC nominates another “man“ again, the GA should reject that nomination by vote again forcing the SC to change, at the end, its nomination to a woman.

To get a sizable majority from the General Assembly Member States, the civil society need to lobby and mobilize more and more countries to vote for the General Assembly’s action for a woman SG.

I have in mind the model of the civil society campaign that Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, mobilized for the Landmines Ban Treaty* as the governments failed to agree.

This unconventional and untried last suggestion is a potential game-changer. A firm, united and determined assertion by the UN General Assembly of its Charter-mandated role to appoint the UN SG can bring back the lost credibility of the UN by electing a woman as its next leader after eight decades of aberration.

* The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction of 1997, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty or the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury was also the initiator of the Security Council resolution 1325 as the Council President in March 2000 underscoring women’s equality of participation; President/Chairman of the UNICEF Executive Board on two occasions; and a well-known analyst of the UN system’s work.

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