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Opinion
The UN General Assembly in session. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias
NEW YORK, Dec 5 2025 (IPS) – From its inception, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has been engaged in improving its working methods, mindful of, as early as in 1949, “… the increasing length of General Assembly sessions, and of the growing tendency towards protracted debates”.
Since the leadership of legendary Ambassador Samir Shihabi of Saudi Arabia as President of the General Assembly (PGA) during the 46th session in 1991 and thereafter, the Assembly’s agenda has included a dedicated item on the revitalization of the work of the Assembly and its Main Committees.
Since the 60th session in 2005, under the guidance of its articulate and forward-looking President, Ambassador Jan Eliasson of Sweden, the Assembly has established the Ad Hoc Working Group on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly. Its mandate was to “to identify ways to further enhance the role, authority, effectiveness and efficiency of the General Assembly”.
Till now, more than 200 outcomes have been recorded in 30 different areas. The incumbent President of the landmark 80th session, Annalena Baerbock of Germany has now taken the initiative to move forward substantively on this perennial exercise of the world’s most universal multilateral body.
Election of a Woman as the Next Secretary-General
I would strongly suggest that her forward-looking leadership would restore the operational credibility of the United Nations by including in its revitalization exercise the role of the Secretary-General, facilitating the election of a woman as the next Secretary-General, transparency of the UN’s budgetary processes, addressing the current and future liquidity crises, and meaningful inclusivity of civil society in the Assembly’s work.
The role, functions and leadership of the Secretary-General need special attention of the Assembly as the appointing authority. The 75th PGA in 2020 Volkan Bozkir has rightly identified that “the Secretary-General is the engine and the transmission system”.
It is unfortunate that questions have been raised about the reticence of the Secretary-General in getting his hands dirty and in getting more proactively involved in and in mobilizing his senior management team towards ending the ongoing global conflicts and wars and promoting peace and reconciliation.
In a recent op-ed, a former UNICEF Deputy Executive Director and a longtime UN watcher Kul Chandra Gautam even exhorted the SG “not to hide behind the glasshouse at Turtle Bay and go beyond invisible subtle diplomacy to more visible shuttle diplomacy.”
After choosing nine men successively to be the world’s topmost diplomat, I strongly believe that the United Nations should have the sanity and sagacity of electing a woman as its next Secretary-General.
In its resolution A/79/372 adopted as recently as on 5 September this year, the Assembly in its paragraph 42(c) says that “ Noting with regret that no woman has ever held the position of Secretary-General,