The appointment of a woman to the UN’s top job is a question of “historical justice,” said former Ecuadoran minister of foreign affairs and minister of national defense Maria Fernanda Espinosa, who is seeking to become the organization’s first female leader.
Espinosa professed her “deep love” for the UN as she unveiled her bid to lead it from next year, joining a field of four other contenders: former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Rafael Grossi of Argentina, former Costa Rican second vice president Rebeca Grynspan and former Senegalese president Macky Sall.
“Some people say it is time” that a woman leads the UN “and I believe it is a matter of historical justice, but I think it’s also an issue of merit, of having the full pool of merit, experience and knowledge to the service of the United Nations,” she told reporters.
Photo: AFP
“We cannot leave half of the world’s population outside of that possibility, and I think if we really want change and transformation why not to have, after 80 years, a woman and the right woman leading the organization,” she added, pointing to a need for “different perspectives” in dangerous times.
While the world is experiencing a surge of wars in the post-World War II era, the current selection process is playing out against a backdrop of political and financial crisis, and accusations of inaction.
Espinosa said that in that context “the UN has to adapt to the times we live in right now.”
“It’s not the other way around,” she said, calling for more ambitious reforms than those announced by outgoing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“What we need is a leader that is hands-on, that has a lot of energy, that knows the system, that can be the first to arrive to prevent a conflict,” Espinosa said.
She proposed the creation of an “early warning” system to detect and flag signals of impending conflicts, and intervene before they erupt, which she laid out in her “vision” document, submitted with the backing of Antigua and Barbuda.
While she is pushing for a new approach, she is careful not to malign previous secretaries-general.
“We should be respectful and careful to say ‘the past doesn’t work and now ... I’m a magician,’” she said. “It’s a difficult job, but when you know how to do the job, if you are confident about your leadership style, I think the UN can ... look at the 21st century with more hope and with this sense of possibility.”
She is adamant that transformation must not be the job of just one individual, but the result of “political momentum” under “assertive leadership.”
Despite mounting attacks on multilateralism, Espinosa says “the UN is the one and only universal platform to address the shared challenges of humanity.”
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