For the third month running, we are reporting that politicking around the appointment of the dual job of UN Humanitarian Chief and Emergency Relief Coordinator remains in full swing. This is one of the most important jobs in the world, as it leads the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is responsible for ensuring governments, NGOs and UN agencies work together in responding to conflicts and natural disasters. The post falls vacant at the end of June.
We know of at least five candidates, if not more.
The latest news is that the decision will be delayed, even at the cost of leaving the post briefly vacant, until the UK general election is held on 4 July. This delay strongly suggests that absurdly and unjustifiably, the UN Secretary-General is again giving special consideration to British candidates.
Currently, the official British candidate appears to be junior UN minister Lord (Tariq) Ahmad. However, he is a member of a political party that is widely expected to be voted out of office on 4 July, so if Secretary-General António Guterres is waiting to see if the incoming administration will approve the choice, then the likelihood is they will not. This raises the alarming prospect of further delays in filling the role.
But we have spoken to several people who were equally, if not more alarmed, by the UK’s current top choice, given that he is quite a junior minister with limited humanitarian experience. One person called it an “indication of how the UK doesn’t take the quality of senior UN appointments at all seriously.” Others questioned if it was appropriate to have someone with a noble title be responsible for the needs of the world’s most vulnerable. (Lord Ahmad was appointed to the House of Lords as a “working” peer, but this means he is known by the aristocratic title Baron Ahmad of Wimbledon.)
If Guterres can be independent and look past the UK, it appears there is a strong field of other candidates, albeit those we’ve heard about are all from the Western Europe and Others (WEOG) bloc of wealthy nations at the UN. Sigrid Kaag, who is Dutch, appears to still be in contention, although some people inside OCHA apparently view her as being too close to the Israeli government. Given their attacks on UN operations in the Gaza war, humanitarians are bristling about Kaag’s prospects. We also understand there is a very strong candidate from New Zealand who may be David Shearer, a former leader of the opposition party and former Special Representative of the Secretary-General in South Sudan. We believe there are at least two other candidates.
It is vital that OCHA not be left leaderless at this critical time, but it is also important that a strong candidate be chosen through a credible process which empowers the person to effectively respond to the world’s many crises. Our team calculated that it is more likely that a piece of space junk could hit the UN Security Council chamber than that the most-qualified candidate would happen to be British six times in a row. If another Briton is appointed, it would bring the independence and integrity of the post into serious question. It would also raise doubts about the judgement of the UK’s incoming administration, suggesting they prize symbolic scorekeeping over working to substantively strengthen the institution and their own standing within it.
What’s up?
As long expected, Anacláudia Marinheiro Centeno Rossbach of Brazil was chosen by the Secretary-General as Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme and elected by the General Assembly by acclamation for a four-year term, starting soon.
An update on Miguel de Serpa Soares, who — as we reported last month — is standing down as Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and UN Legal Counsel. He is staying in the post until Sept. 15. It is traditionally open to candidates from all countries, except the five permanent members of the Security Council. The opening has already attracted a large field of high-quality applicants. (If only all top jobs could be like this!) One diplomat mentioned, however, that he expected Guterres to choose another person from WEOG. (Soares is Portuguese.)
The Secretary-General has launched his 2024 Global Call for candidates for the roster for UN field missions (Special Representatives of the Secretary-General (SRSGs), Deputy Special Representatives of the Secretary-General (DSRSGs) and Special Envoys). This is a positive innovation by Guterres and his fourth such campaign (the third was in 2021). Countries and UN institutions are encouraged to nominate candidates, but they can also self-nominate. This flexibility is good, since before the Global Call innovation, recommendations were sought directly from states. They had a tendency to only consider their own officials and overlook strong civil society and ex-UN candidates.
The elections for the President of the General Assembly and UN Security Council were uncontested and uneventful. Philémon Yang of Cameroon was elected as the 79th President of the General Assembly, the 75th man to take the role. Pakistan, Somalia, Panama, Denmark and Greece were elected to the Security Council for the 2025-26 term. The Assembly also elected various Vice Presidents and Committee Chairs, including Maritza Chan of Costa Rica as the first woman to preside over the First Committee on disarmament. Following a resolution passed earlier in June, for the first time representatives of the state of Palestine were eligible for some of these roles, but they did not put themselves forward.
At the Economic and Social Council, 18 states were each elected for three-year terms. As always, the UN released the outcome, but to find the detailed results quickly one needs to watch the webcast. In most regions, these seats were uncontested (one protest vote was cast for Argentina), but Eastern Europe was contested with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Bosnia going for two vacancies. This race was decided in the first round: with 125 votes needed, Armenia got 148 votes; Azerbaijan 148; and Bosnia 76.
Additionally, Germany, New Zealand and Denmark gave their seats to Austria, Australia and Finland for the remainder of their terms, according to an agreement to rotate those positions. This arrangement was signed off by the General Assembly in straightforward fashion, although one protest vote was cast for Greece.
A 25th round (!) of voting was also held for the final seat in ECOSOC for the 2023-2026 term. Well over a year into that period and the seat still vacant, states remain unable to pick between Russia and North Macedonia. They didn’t get much closer: higher turnout saw Russia’s vote rise a little but not enough. With 124 votes needed to win, Russia got 108 and North Macedonia 77. A 26th round will be arranged in due course.
Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Committee (HRCtte) and Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) held their elections. UN Special Procedures and Treaty Bodies are generally far more transparent when it comes to their elections and selections than the UN General Assembly. This time, they provided comprehensive webpages outlining the process, the candidates and their CVs for both CEDAW and the HRCtte.
Nevertheless, if you want to know how many votes candidates got quickly, you must watch the webcast. So, we did.
Both elections were decided in the first round. Notable results include the re-election of Ivan Šimonović, a former UN Special Advisor for R2P, to the Human Rights Committee; and the election of Jelena Pia-Comella, Managing Coordinator of Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes (GAAMAC), to CEDAW. Shazia Choudhry, the first candidate from the UK to put themselves forward to CEDAW and who the British Foreign Office publicly backed, narrowly missed out.
Full results:
For CEDAW:
- Bandana Rana (Nepal) 146 ELECTED
- Jelena Pia-Comella (Andorra) 140 ELECTED
- Corinne Dettmeijer-Vermeulen (Netherlands) 128 ELECTED
- Violet Eudine Barriteau (Barbados) 127 ELECTED
- Erika Schlappi (Switzerland) 125 ELECTED
- Nahla Haidar El Addal (Lebanon) 124 ELECTED
- Hamida Al-Shukairi (Oman) 121 ELECTED
- Patsili Toledo Vasquez (Chile) 120 ELECTED
- Madina Jarbussynova (Kazakhstan) 117 ELECTED
- Mu Hong (China) 115 ELECTED
- Natasha Stott Despoja (Australia) 115 ELECTED
- Eunice Njovana (Zimbabwe) 107
- Shazia Choudhry (UK) 106
- Ângela Melo (Mozambique) 101
- Abide Kpemsi épse Kombate (Togo) 74
- Donatienne Girkwishaka (Burundi) 70
- Diana González Perrett (Uruguay) 55
- Thérèse Ngoluma Malongue épse Atangana Amougou (Cameroon) 54
- Lia Nadaraia (Georgia) 31
- Neda Chalovska Dimovska (North Macedonia) 20
For the HRCtte:
- Akmal Kholmatovich Saidov (Uzbekistan) 129 ELECTED
- Mahjoub El Haiba (Morocco) 120 ELECTED
- Wafaa Ashraf Moharram Bassim (Egypt) 119 ELECTED
- Ivan Šimonović (Croatia) 115 ELECTED
- Changrok Soh (South Korea) 111 ELECTED
- Carlos Ramón Fernández Liesa (Spain) 109 ELECTED
- Tania María Abdo Rocholl (Paraguay) 104 ELECTED
- Imerut Tamerat Yigezu (Ethiopia) 101 ELECTED
- Konstantin Korkelia (Georgia) 99 ELECTED
- Dalia Leinartė (Lithuania) 94
- Kobauyah Tchamdja Kpatcha (Togo) 91
- Bongani Majola (South Africa) 84
- Zirignon Constant Delbe (Côte d’Ivoire) 79
- Pacifique Manirakiza (Burundi) 61
- Jean-Paul Nguimout (Cameroon) 47
- Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski (North Macedonia) 18
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