This may be our last newsletter for a little while as we try to find new funders for our work — but more on that later. We had hoped to be able to sign off with the long-awaited news of the appointment of a new Emergency Relief Coordinator for the UN. This role is ever-more crucial as Israel recently denied the visa renewal of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ top official in occupied Palestine, Andrea De Domenico.
Shockingly, however, the emergency relief coordinator appointment still has not happened after several months, and we now hear it may not happen until late August or early September. One of the world’s most critical roles is vacant, with duties being performed on an acting basis by the previous Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Joyce Msuya.
There is no shortage of qualified individuals if one is willing to look beyond Britain. The Secretary-General could consider making Msuya’s appointment permanent, or look at candidates that potentially include Sigrid Kaag and David Shearer, whose names had been circulating previously; or Robert Piper of Australia, current Special Adviser on Solutions to Internal Displacement, whose name has also been mentioned. Yet, Guterres is apparently insisting on giving the UK the right to continue its unjustifiable monopoly on choosing who will get the role. But, in the words of one UN watcher, choosing someone is “just not a priority for [new UK Foreign Secretary David] Lammy.” So, the world waits.
Lammy has apparently been sounding out candidates, but so far doesn’t seem to have anyone firmly in mind. One name that does come up repeatedly is former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, but this comes with the complication of Miliband being considered for the post of UK ambassador to the United States, which he is thought to prefer. That candidate will not be selected until after the US Presidential election in November. (As an outspoken critic of former President Trump, Miliband would only be considered in the event of a Democratic victory.)
As a result, we’ve heard that the UK is struggling to find any candidate to present at all for the UN post — and yet is determined to do so, as the UN is inexplicably determined to allow them to dominate the process.
As one person told us, “They’re scrambling and are reaching out far and wide.”
Said another: “The SG keeping the top humanitarian job vacant at a time like this, when applications closed late May, so that a new UK government gets to nominate, and they can’t find anyone — it’s scandalous. Especially, if it is true that there were well qualified [non-British] applicants.”
What’s up?
Both Blue Smoke and PassBlue have reported on the increasingly vicious battle for leadership of the International Seabed Authority between incumbent Michael Lodge of the UK, perceived by many to be close to deep-sea mining interests, and the Brazilian Black environmentalist Leticia Carvalho. The New York Times reports that Lodge’s nominating state, Kiribati, attempted to persuade Carvalho to drop out by offering her a high-level staff job in the authority. Lodge has strongly denied any part in this, yet the Ambassador for Kiribati not only confirmed it but said that Lodge was aware of it. On Aug. 2, Carvalho was elected by the surprisingly wide margin of 79 votes to 34.
While OCHA may not have a leader currently, it has refreshed its pool of advisers. Three new appointees have been made to the Advisory Group of the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) — a set of 19 specialists who help guide OCHA in its spending of the central fund of $400 million. The new appointees are: Ambassador Ruy Pereira, Director of the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil; Ambassador Shiferaw Teklemariam, Commissioner for the Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission; and Christophe Schiltz, Director General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs at Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.
As reported previously, September will see Philémon Yang, 76, who was the longest-serving Prime Minister in Cameroon’s history, become the 79th President of the UN General Assembly (PGA), and 75th man in that role. But we know who the 80th is likely to be, and it looks as if it will finally be a woman. The 80th PGA will play a particularly critical role as the person will oversee the General Assembly’s job in the selection of the UN’s next Secretary-General. It will be the Western Europe and Other Group’s turn to nominate someone for the PGA spot, and that group has formed a consensus around Germany’s choosing.
Our understanding is that Ambassador Antje Leendertse (Germany’s Permanent Representative to the UN and co-facilitator of the Summit of the Future) was in contention but might face competition from senior politicians in the German Green Party, which controls Germany’s Foreign Ministry. However, according to recent reports, we are now heading in a different direction and it seems “certain” that Helga Schmid will be chosen.
Schmid has been Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for the past four years (a controversial role at times) and Secretary General of the European External Action Service (EEAS) for the previous four years. She is therefore a very senior appointment but not a political one. Perhaps only a diplomatic appointee of her seniority was sufficient to resist political pressure? Or perhaps she was simply the best person available.
Mohamed al Hassan of Oman has been announced as the UN’s new Special Representative for Iraq and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). UNAMI is due to end next year, so al Hassan’s job will be to ensure that the mission withdraws in good order and does not leave a vacuum in its wake.
We understand the final shortlist was al Hassan and Volker Perthes. Al Hassan is certainly the less controversial of the two: as we covered previously, Perthes had a complicated spell as Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sudan and then conducted a review of UNAMI. We are not aware of any previous instances of someone being appointed to head a mission that they had conducted a review of immediately prior. Such a revolving door could potentially have raised retrospective questions about the independence of the review. In appointing al Hassan, such questions are averted.
Some follow-up to our previous story on the appointment of Felipe Paullier of Uruguay as head of the new UN Youth Office. We now understand that the appointment process was overseen, as many senior appointments are, by UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, and we have unconfirmed reports that the final shortlist included Daniel Calarco from Brazil, Hajer Shareef from Libya, Emma Theofelus from Namibia, Ester Simon from Namibia and Martin Carazo from Bulgaria. The office still has staffing issues and is apparently still looking for a chief of staff, with an interim in the post but no permanent appointee having been chosen despite applications closing in May. We have heard that this is just one of several vacancies in the office that the UN has struggled to fill quickly, while we have received unconfirmed allegations that UN guidelines were not fully followed during interviews.
Devex report on the battle on who will be the next regional director of the World Health Organization’s Africa office.
Finally: There’s a second draft of the Pact for the Future! It is, mercifully, a lot shorter, if still a hefty 82 paragraphs. Some of the strong language we fought for on senior appointments has been retained — so far.
Paragraph 67 (c) pushes for the selection of the next Secretary-General to “take into account the regrettable fact that there has never been a woman Secretary-General,” while paragraph 70 (d) calls on states to “ensure the transparent and inclusive selection process of United Nations’ executive heads and senior positions, taking into account the principles of equitable geographical representation and gender balance and adhere to the general rule that there should be no monopoly on senior posts in the United Nations system by nationals of any State or group of States.”
But we understand that the no-monopolies language is hanging by a thread. Word has it that the UK, the US and the like-minded group (which includes China and Russia) all want to see the mention of “monopolies” on top jobs removed and have made their views known to the German and Namibian co-facilitators.
This dynamic gives us a distinct sense of déjà vu; This time last year they colluded to remove almost identical language from a General Assembly resolution. Perhaps the language has been kept in for now to give a strong signal to Guterres that states are all closely watching the OCHA appointment. After all, it can be read as quite the rebuke to the UK as it desperately tries to hold on to its monopoly of a post in which it does not even seem to have a candidate.
It’s time to start thinking about the next Secretary-General, get involved!
The 1 for 8 Billion campaign makes the argument that if the next Secretary-General is to represent us all, then we should all have a say in how that person is chosen. As states start to turn their attention towards shaping the next selection process, 1 for 8 Billion is relaunching. Sign up to their newsletter to stay in touch with developments, and if you work for an NGO who would like to join the coalition, get in touch by using this form. Have strong opinions about how the next Secretary-General should be chosen? Let the team know by taking part in their online consultation.
No smoke without funding
For the past two years, our small team at Blue Smoke has been shining a light into the smoke-filled rooms in which some of the most powerful people are chosen for the highest-level posts. We’ve done this despite the UN secretariat telling us at the very start that they regard even the most basic information “confidential” about how people who exercise power in the public’s name are chosen.
We’ve helped to shape policy by strengthening the language of General Assembly resolutions and encouraging states to speak out about stitch-ups. Our most public output, this newsletter, has become required reading for UN diplomats and far beyond.
We have been successful in our endeavours thanks to an astonishingly large number of brave, principled UN staff — from the relatively junior to the very senior — alongside engaged diplomats and keen UN watchers who have come forward to let us know what is going on. We also owe our thanks to the generous support of Open Society Foundations (OSF), without which Blue Smoke’s small team could not continue. (Blue Smoke has a media partnership with PassBlue, also a nonprofit, but our reports, advocacy and this newsletter are created by a collective of NGOs and freelancers.) Unfortunately, the OSF support will not be continued.
The campaign and the newsletter will therefore be paused. A special issue of this newsletter, launching our latest report — on racial representation and equality within the UN system — is in the works and should come out in September. But until new funding can be found, it will be the last Blue Smoke newsletter.
We haven’t given up, so please get in touch (hello@bluesmoke.blog) if you can offer the campaign financial support. We want to pass on our thanks to everyone who read, shared or contributed to our work. It has meant everything to us.
And finally…
As this may be our last newsletter, we also need to note something we may not have the time to say later: we have given the UK a hard time over the OCHA appointment, and rightly so as their insistence on maintaining their monopoly despite the consequences is appalling. But the UK is far from being the only, or even the worst, offender. Whether it’s France and peacekeeping, Russia and counterterrorism, China and economic and social affairs or the US and a whole list of departments and funds, such as Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Unicef or the World Food Programme, many states are just as unreasonable. The UK has just been far more visible in this regard due to the rapid turnover of Emergency Relief Coordinators and the — relatively — public nature of that appointment process. When it comes to which American will next run the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, or which Russian will next run the CounterTerrorism office, we do not even know when those vacancies will come up! So much for transparency in the world’s most public institution.