Ugandan diplomat \u200bOlara Otunnu has joined the contest to become the next secretary-general of \u200cthe United Nations, the seventh contender to succeed\u00a0Antonio Guterres\u00a0when he steps down at the end of this year.<\/p>\n
Otunnu, a former U.N. under-secretary-general who served as a special representative for children and armed conflict, \u200bwas nominated by Uganda in a letter on Friday to the presidents of the \u200bU.N. General Assembly and Security Council.<\/p>\n
At 75, he is the oldest of \u2060the current candidates for the role, which Guterres has held for two five-year terms.<\/p>\n
Guterres’ \u200bsuccessor faces the task of revitalising an\u00a0organisation in crisis\u00a0and declining stature that is under \u200bincreasing pressure to reform a bloated, costly bureaucracy and cut duplication across its many agencies.<\/p>\n
In his vision statement, Otunnu stressed the need to continue institutional reforms and said he would give immediate priority to efforts \u200bto help end major international conflicts. He also pledged work to establish a body \u200bto oversee U.N. work on AI and highlighted the need for climate change action that does not \u200cundermine economic \u2060development.<\/p>\n
SEVEN CANDIDATES NOW IN THE RACE<\/strong><\/p>\n The other candidates are Rafael Grossi of Argentina, director-general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency; former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet; Rebeca Grynspan, a former vice president of Costa Rica; Maria Fernanda Espinosa, a former foreign affairs and defence minister \u200bof Ecuador; Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, \u200ba former foreign \u2060Minister of Guyana, and Macky Sall, a former president of Senegal.<\/p>\n The selection process is expected to start in earnest this week with straw \u200bpolls in the 15-nation Security Council aimed at whittling down the \u200bfield. Other \u2060candidates can still join the race.<\/p>\n Diplomats say there is no obvious frontrunner, although there has been a widespread view it is Latin America’s turn to provide the U.N. leader and there \u2060has been \u200bsupport for a first woman in the job.<\/p>\n Experts say \u200bthe key to success will be to avoid a veto by one of the five permanent members of the \u200bSecurity Council, particularly China, Russia or the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ugandan diplomat \u200bOlara Otunnu has joined the contest to become the next secretary-general of \u200cthe United Nations, the seventh contender to succeed\u00a0Antonio Guterres\u00a0when he steps down at the end of this year. Otunnu, a former U.N. under-secretary-general who served as a special representative for children and armed conflict, \u200bwas nominated by Uganda in a letter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,33],"tags":[1463,5361,132,364],"class_list":["post-21612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-antonio-guterres","tag-olara-otunnu","tag-uganda","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21613,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21612\/revisions\/21613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}