The United Nations in a time of opportunity and uncertainty: a time to choose.
At a moment of growing pressure on multilateralism—and the United Nations (UN)—, the UN Secretary-General (UN SG) selection is pivotal. The UN remains the only universal forum where all Member States can address shared challenges, forge common solutions, and uphold international norms—its legitimacy and convening power are vital for advancing peace, reduce humanitarian needs, sustainable development, cooperation, and human rights.
Oxfam’s commitment to the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guides our constructive, principled—and at times critical—engagement, including through our offices in New York and Geneva.
If elected, you will need to build broad, credible consensus, safeguard the UN’s integrity, and provide principled leadership in the interests of all—especially the excluded. You will face a set of defining challenge: reversing trends of conflict, inequality, exclusion, and concentrated power; upholding international law; and restoring confidence in international cooperation and solidarity.
The UN of tomorrow must rest on four core commitments:
- Representation requires that the next Secretary-General be a woman – the first in the UN’s 81-year history. Gender parity at the UN’s highest level is long overdue.
- Participation requires ensuring meaningful participation of citizens and civil society across UN processes, consistent with the Charter’s commitment to ‘We the Peoples’.
- Accountability requires long-overdue reform of the UN Security Council (UN SC) to make it more representative, democratic, and effective in carrying out its mandate.
- The right to self-determination requires opposing occupation and confronting colonial power imbalances within the UN system, while democratizing global governance through meaningful leadership by Global South actors.
Five critical areas to address today’s world challenges:
1. INEQUALITY: a UN SG leading the UN to champion the global fight against inequality
Inaction on inequality is no longer acceptable. The inequality emergency is eroding social cohesion, trust in institutions, democracy, and sustainable development. As the next UN SG, you must make tackling inequality a defining priority, placing it at the heart of the post-2030 agenda.
Recommendations:
- The next UN SG should support the creation of an International Panel on Inequality within the UN system inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
- The next UN SG should promote National Inequality Reduction Plans with time-bound, measurable targets – ‘inequality NDCs’ – to reduce inequality to sustainable levels.
The next UN SG should raise the ambition in the Financing for Development process to support a more equal world, driving reforms to the international financial architecture (IFA) that reduce global political and economic inequality and prioritize public over private wealth.
2. HUMANITY AT THE CENTER: a UN SG supporting civilians, humanitarian law and international solidarity
In a world of growing crises and conflicts, you, as the next UN SG, must firmly defend civilian protection, international solidarity and international humanitarian and human rights law. The UN must use its voice to ensure that no one is left behind, uphold accountability, and challenge impunity – especially when powerful states or their allies are responsible. International Humanitarian Law (IHL) continues to erode, with accountability mechanisms failing to keep pace.
Recommendations:
- The next UN SG should place civilian protection and needs at the centre of all policies and interventions as a top priority, championing principled, gender‑just humanitarian action free from political or military conditionality.
- The next UN SG should uphold international legal frameworks by ensuring adherence to IHL, dismantling systems of impunity, and ensuring accountability for violations of international law in conflict settings. This includes advancing reform of the UN SC to prevent its manipulation by powerful actors that undermine the application of international norms, IHL, and the UN Charter.
The next UN SG should transform the humanitarian system by building a resilient system grounded in international solidarity and complementarity, while enabling a principled ecosystem that shifts power and resources to national and local actors. They should also reinforce Member States’ engagement in sustainable funding mechanisms to support an independent, principled humanitarian system free from political influence and interference.
3. CLIMATE JUSTICE: a UN SG placing climate justice at the heart of the UN agenda.
Off track to meet the Paris Agreement – 2.3–2.8°C of warming – and unjustly burdening the least responsible, as the next UN SG, you must place climate justice at the core of the UN agenda—linking ambitious climate action with reforms to the international financial architecture that advance equity, human rights, accountability, and ensure meaningful participation.
Recommendations:
- The next UN SG should champion a rapid, just, and equitable transition away from fossil fuels keeping the 1.5°C goal within reach, while addressing the disproportionate responsibility of high-income countries, major polluters, and the super-rich.
- The next UN SG should make large-scale climate finance a defining political priority, alongside reforms to the IFA that meet the needs of Global South communities, including for adaptation, loss and damage, and just transitions.
- The next UN SG should strengthen democratic and inclusive multilateralism by ensuring meaningful participation of frontline communities, Indigenous Peoples, women, youth, and Global South countries in global climate governance and decision-making.
4. GENDER JUSTICE: a UN SG envisioning a feminist future.
A feminist future must be grounded in lasting gender justice, where all women, girls, and trans and non-binary people fully enjoy their rights, autonomy, and dignity. Yet unequal power structures and colonial legacies within the UN persist. As the next UN SG, you must act to redistribute power and resources, protect civic space, and advance accountability on gender justice and bodily autonomy.
Recommendations:
- The next UN SG should lead the transformation of the international economic order by advancing a just, equitable, and feminist transition beyond growth, centred on care, and based in multidimensional and intersectional metrics, central to the post-2030 agenda.
- The next UN SG should strengthen support for feminist movements in the Global South through significantly increased, flexible, long-term funding provide directly at scale.
- The next UN SG should protect women human rights defenders, feminist movements, and civic space from violence – including technology-facilitated gender-based violence – criminalization, and repression through robust, enforceable measures.
5. CIVIC SPACE & DIGITAL RIGHTS: a UN SG protecting a UN where civil society is not silenced.
Amid a rapid, largely unaccountable technological change, you, as the next UN SG must champion civic participation and fundamental freedoms, including digital rights. Ensuring people can freely organize and speak out –both offline and online – is essential to inclusive governance, democratic accountability, more equitable societies, and countering authoritarianism and oligarchic power.
Recommendations:
- The next UN SG should appoint a Special Envoy for Civil Society, in line with the Call to Action for Human Rights and ensure meaningful civil society participation across UN processes.
- The next UN SG should establish an annual Civil Society Action Day to promote the right to freedom of association, along with related rights and freedoms.
- The next UN SG should commit to fully implementing the UN Global Digital Compact and acting on the forthcoming recommendations of the UN Independent Scientific Panel on AI.