Changes in UN High-Level Leadership Announced

As reported by IISD, several high-level leadership positions related to intergovernmental sustainable development policy will be filled in the coming months. In addition to positions within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, there are also selection processes for the next Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the next UN Secretary-General are underway.

In December 2015, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) President and the President of the Security Council sent a joint letter to all UN Member States that officially started the process of soliciting candidates leading to the selection and appointment of the next UN Secretary-General, who will assume the role in January 2017.

The current term of the UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner, comes to an end in June 2016, and applications for his successor are currently under review. For a list of these candidates see Felix Dodds blog. According to him, Ambassador Macharia Kamau of Kenya, who was Co-Chair with Csaba Korosi of Hungary of the Open Working Group on the SDGs and Co-facilitator of the intergovernmental negotiations for the post-2015 development agenda with Ambassador David Donoghue of Ireland, leading to the 2030 Agenda is “perhaps the most interesting”.

It is also expected that the next Chief of NGO Branch in UN DESA is will be announcement soon. This position is important insofar as the Branch is the Secretariat for the ECOSOC Committee on NGOs focusing on ECOSOC consultative status. The process for the involvement of civil society through the Major Groups and other Stakeholders has gone beyond that of consultative status and it is important that it continues to do so.

Ideally the candidate should come from a stakeholder organization as they would then bring to the post the experience that would enable a positive relationship with the organizations they are servicing. If not then they should show that they are positively inclined to stakeholders.

One of the roles they will be playing is to service the Committee on NGOs. The Committee has slowed down or stopped the accreditation of organizations that certain countries don't like. Just because an NGO watchdog organization points out that a government isnt fulfilling its role it shouldn't be stopped from engaging with the UN. If an NGO disagrees with a government then that is part of a good democratic society - embrace it.

There is a growing feeling that some countries are introducing restrictions on NGOs who disagree with them in their countries.