The United Nations General Assembly’s debut “dialogues” with the four candidates vying so far for secretary-general kicked off on April 21, lasting all day with two of the contenders, Michelle Bachelet and Rafael Grossi. Each fielded three hours of interactive discussions with the organization’s member states and civil society groups as a broad effort to ensure transparency in selecting the next UN chief in a format organized by Annalena Baerbock, president of the General Assembly.
The candidates fielded questions covering current geopolitics and the UN itself, revealing the candidates’ leadership qualities and style, as well as their priorities. Many queries surprisingly focused on the reforms underway in the 80-year-old institution as it shrinks in staff and budgets.
Direct references to active wars in the Mideast, Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza (where a ceasefire is regulary violated by Israel), were few during the dialogues, as were mentions of the dire humanitarian conditions across much of the world. The relative silence on these matters may reflect a preference by diplomats to keep the conversation light in this setting and not let the real world intrude too much. (One civil society group dug in by asking, for example, how a candidate could ensure no more monopolizing of senior-level jobs.)
Of the five permanent members in the Security Council, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, only Britain and Russia asked questions. Bachelet and Grossi appeared nervous during their respective conversations but more comfortable talking to reporters afterward. — DULCIE LEIMBACH
Five Promises Bachelet Made
Bachelet, a former two-time president of Chile and onetime UN high commissioner for human rights, was poised to show member states that she understood the languages of the UN by starting her dialogue with the 193 member states and civil society groups by saying “good morning” in the organization’s six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish and Russian.
Bachelet, 75, was the first of the four candidates jostling to become the next UN secretary-general and began her dialogue by presenting her vision for the top job. She intersperced her answers with anecdotes, providing insights into her own thinking and outlook. She told the room, for example, that one of her personal goals was to speak better French. Bachelet speaks Spanish as a first language, is fluent in English and has working knowledge in French and German, according to the documents she submitted to the General Assembly.
Nominated jointly by Brazil and Mexico (Chile endorsed her initially, but with a change of government, withdrew its support), Bachelet said that she understood the challenges facing the world body, and in her opening statement, she touched on the world’s expanding armed conflicts, accelerating climate change, deepening inequalities and what she described as a dangerous erosion of trust in multilateral institutions.
Bachelet did not name specific conflicts or governments, but her meaning was unmistakable when she talked about rising great-power competition and the retreat of several big nations from international legal frameworks upon which the UN is built.
“My father, an honorable member of the Chilean Air Force who deeply believed in the rule of law, suffered the consequences when those in power turned against it,” she said, using her personal story and the struggles of her country to illustrate the relevance of a multilateral organization like the UN. “It was international pressure and global solidarity that helped restore peace and democracy to my homeland at a time when we desperately needed hope. The world provided it.”
She argued that the three pillars of the UN – peace and security, development and human rights – are inseparable and that any reform process that subordinates development or human rights to cost-cutting steps would undermine the very institution reforms are meant to strengthen.
Bachelet answered many questions about leadership and the skills and experience that are needed to manage the world body as it faces a liquidity crisis and its very existence. She also said that the UN leader needed to show up more in the areas where the organization works. In her responses, Bachelet made promises she aims to keep if she is selected as the next UN boss. PassBlue has highlighted five of the promises:
• UN reform (UN80)
Bachelet pledged to pursue the UN80 reform initiative as a non-negotiable priority by reducing duplication, improving financial transparency and ensuring the process is driven by member states and not imposed administratively. She promised to protect the development pillar from being hollowed out by reforms and to reorient the UN development system toward country-level priorities with more empowered resident coordinators. She promised that reform would not be a one-off exercise but a continuum backed by accountability mechanisms.
• Security Council reform
Bachelet committed to using the secretary-general’s good offices to build what she called “political viability” for Security Council reform, including better representation for Africa and other underrepresented regions while acknowledging the final decision belongs to member states.
• Climate change as an existential priority
She pledged to use the full authority of the secretary-general’s office to sustain urgency around the 1.5°C goal, champion grant-based rather than loan-based climate finance for the most vulnerable countries and support the loss and damage climate fund for developing countries.
• Geographical and gender representation
She committed to breaking national monopolies on senior posts by insisting on geographical diversity and gender parity and including candidates from underrepresented and developing countries for jobs across the UN Secretariat. She vowed to treat women’s empowerment as central to peace and development, as well as to meet regularly with civil society (including women’s groups) to identify and remove barriers to their participation in UN processes.
• Meaningful youth participation
She pledged to direct the resident coordinator system — which she referred to often in her remarks — to actively include young people at the community, national and regional levels as genuine participants in decision-making and peacebuilding. She said she would make young people part of processes to finding solutions.
Five Promises Grossi Made
Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), dived into the interactive dialogue with a scorecard of his own achievements at the Vienna-based nuclear monitoring agency.
When asked by a representative of Canada how Grossi would handle the war in the Mideast if he were selected secretary-general, he said: “In my current capacity, I have been dealing with this issue for many years. This is an issue that is multifaceted. There is a nuclear chapter, which is the one I know, but there are many others that are there, and that would benefit enormously from the participation of the United Nations.”
The representative of Tajikistan asked how Grossi envisioned the future of water, a major challenge for the Central Asian country, and what role the UN should play to ensure water availability.
Grossi replied, “As you know, we have been working with the IAEA through the isotopic hydrology specialists on the protection of glaciers and access to water which is, of course, badly degraded because of the current circumstances.”
Asked by a civil society group called the Center for Development of International Law how Grossi would inspire and foster a mission-driven ecosystem among UN staff, he referenced the IAEA, saying: “The organization I lead is one that has become a field operation. It was never meant to be that. But we are there, you know, in the frontlines of war, we are in places that we were not imagining that we would be there. I hope I inspire my staff by going to places that I expect them to go. I mean battlefields.”
Grossi, a 65-year-old diplomat endorsed by his country of Argentina, often drew out references from his job at the IAEA in his attempt to secure the leadership role of the world’s biggest multilateral organization. He framed his managing of the Vienna agency as uniquely relevant to the challenges before the UN, particularly wars. That experience, he said, sets him apart as a candidate capable of navigating volatile geopolitics.
As one of two men currently contesting for secretary-general (the other is Macky Sall, an ex-president of Senegal) many member states are calling for a woman to win that seat, given that it has never happened. Grossi again pulled up his credentials and positioned himself as a gender equality advocate.
“When I took over an organization in 2019, 28 percent of women and 72 percent were men,” he said. “Today, it is 53 percent women. I’m talking about the IAEA . . . now we have, including in the higher senior levels, parity, if not, a slight majority of women.”
Grossi also used the session to highlight promises he will strive to keep if he becomes the UN boss. PassBlue has highlighted five of them:
• Continuity on UN80 reform
Grossi pledged to begin where reform efforts are left off if he becomes secretary-general on Jan. 1, 2027, picking up from what the General Assembly approves in the fall and treating UN80 not as a finished product but as the first step of a long road requiring sustained leadership. He committed to treating the Security Council not as a body to be invoked in emergencies but as a constant partner, maintaining a “permanent” channel with the 15-member body as the first port of call when international peace and security is at risk. He pledged to run an open-door office, replicating his policy at the IAEA and holding regular town halls to ensure the secretary-general remains accessible to everyone in the organization.
• Upholding the UN Charter, including with major powers
When pressed by Cuba, Iran and Switzerland as to whether he would hold firm under political pressure from powerful member states, Grossi said he would uphold the Charter’s principles consistently and without exception. He committed to a doctrine of “impartiality” when addressing international crises, rejecting hierarchies of importance among conflicts and pledging to engage with all parties, including adversaries, without taking sides, calling impartiality a “lonely place.”
• Constructive relationship with international financial institutions
Grossi vowed to end the conflicting narratives between New York City and Washington, pledging to build a cooperative, convergent relationship between the UN system and the World Bank and IMF as a prerequisite for progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, which end in 2030, a year before his own term finishes. He promised that amid financial constraints, the UN’s development pillar would not become a variable to adjust under budget pressures and that fiscal cuts would not fall disproportionately on development mandates, particularly those in Africa and elsewhere in the global South. He committed to elevating a “frank conversation” with member states about the cost of peacekeeping, arguing that political commitments to operations must be matched with specific, predictable financial contributions rather than just speeches.
• Engaging young people through better communication
Acknowledging that young people neither know nor care about what the UN does, including his own children, Grossi pledged to change how the institution communicates: listening first, then adapting the tools and platforms of engagement to reach the next generation on their own terms.
• Strengthening the UN-African Union partnership
Grossi said he would deepen institutional cooperation between the UN and the African Union, citing Chapter VIII of the UN Charter and Security Council Resolution 2719 while calling for more interaction between the two bodies on peacekeeping and conflict response.
Damilola Banjo is an award-winning staff reporter for PassBlue who has covered a wide range of topics, from Africa-centered stories to gender equality to UN peacekeeping and US-UN relations. She also oversees all video production for PassBlue. She was a Dag Hammarskjold fellow in 2023 and a Pulitzer Center postgraduate fellow in 2021. She was part of the BBC Africa team that produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Sex for Grades.” In addition, she worked for WFAE, an NPR affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. Banjo has a master’s of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
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Damilola, thank you again for this great contribution, my feedback is simple: Michelle is a living example of the UN in action as shared in her personal history and professional life. Rafael is the result of the ongoing war on Iran because of uranium enrichment. A big difference between the two candidates.