Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

The rumors that have been circulating for the last month have now proven to be true. The Bulgarian government has withdrawn support from Irina Bokova as their candidate for UN Secretary General and replaced her with Kristalina Georgieva , the European commissioner for budget and human resources. There is some evidence that the right of center parties in European capitals have been behind this with some articles appearing in the last few weeks against Bokova. The Guardian reported on the 26 th : “one of her (Kristalina’s) staff members was hacked and emails purporting to be from one of her top aides were sent out to the rest of her office, instructing them to attack Bokova ” There is no question that Kristalina has the cv and record to be a very good UN Secretary General. She is a strong supporter of sustainable development issues she will pick up the SDGs and climate agendas with ease. She is dynamic and very personable and was very active around last week’s UN General A...

We are down to nine candidates with Christiana Figueres withdrawal. As you can see from the votes above Antonio Guterres remains the favorite for the new Secretary General. As you will have seen from my previous blogs on the subject though I think he has an excellent cv for the job he isn’t a woman nor one from the Eastern UN region -- whose turn it is.  Although this rotation between regions has been an informal agreement it makes sense that the different regions of the world should have a turn to be UN Secretary General. It fits in with the universal nature of the organization and ensures different cultural interpretations of the job. If you have regional rotation, then the Western Europe and Other Group region have their turn next ( Antonio Guterres is from a WEOG countr y) as the Secretary General after this. The backdrop to this  fifth straw poll is there is another candidate being promoted by some of the western European countries and that is Kristalina Georgi...

The third straw poll for the new United Nations Secretary General happened today and there have been some interesting developments. The largest change has been Miroslav Lajčák moving from tenth to second with now 9 encourage (up from 2) and 5 discourage (down from 6 and only 1 no opinion). Miroslav was until the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia a member of the Communist Party.  He has been Slovakia’s ambassador to Japan and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He joined the Czechoslovak foreign ministry in 1988. Between 1991 and 1993 Lajčák was posted to the Czechoslovak and subsequently the Slovak embassy in Moscow. He was Slovakia’s Ambassador to Japan to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro), Albania and the Republic of Macedonia. He was the EU's supervisor to the 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum. He has served as Foreign Minister of Slovakia three times and is also severed also as Deputy Prime Minister until March 2016. he was a s...

So since the first poll Vesna Pusić has withdrawn as a candidate for Secretary General which leaves 11 and Kevin Rudd the former Prime Minister of Australia was NOT supported by his government to join the election. There are still rumors of a late addition by Alicia Barcena (Mexico) Executive Secretary of United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean who would be an excellent candidate but I think will not join the fray. Those who have read my blogs on the election will know I have supported both  woman and regional rotation which would mean an Eastern European woman candidate.  So let’s look at where we are. After the second straw poll António Guterres (Portugal) the former Portuguese left of center Prime Minister is still in first place but has picked up one less encourage and for the first time two discourage. The question in many people’s minds are those two P5 members such as China and Russia. There is no question in my mind ...

by Alexandra Coe and Felix Dodds On Tuesday the 12 th of July the candidates for the next United Nations Secretary General were debating in the UN General Assembly Hall which was excellently moderated by Al Jazeera's James Bays and Folly Bah Thibault. The first thing to say about the debate is that ALL the candidates performed well and conveyed strong leadership capabilities needed for the next Secretary General. The debate was so much more refreshing than the US Democratic and  Republican debates for President, and gives hope that there are still among us true leaders. The pressing question of the SG debates was if the rotation around the regions was most important in this year’s selection or if representation by a woman was more important at this point in UN governance.  It’s important to understand that the UN has been, since Javier Perez de Cuellar, operating a regional rotation among the five official UN regional blocks. The Eastern European Group has ne...

The beginning of the media buzz Now that we know who the  the next Executive Director of UNEP and the  Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, will be. Coffee bar talk has moved on to who the next UN Secretary General will be two names it seems are being talked about if they will throw their hats into the ring they are   Ms. Susana Malcorra (Argentina) and  Alicia Bárcena Ibarra (Mexico) Of course, it helps if you know the process of selection a little better before writing the article. For starters, you cannot have a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, UK and USA [P5]) as the UN Secretary General. The New York Times suggested Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. She is unfortunately a French national, therefore she isn’t a possible candidate; nor is the excellent suggestion by Slant of Ertharin Cousin, the US World Food Programme head. The UN is a set of checks and balances – just ...