The Secretary-General is one of the most visible leadership positions in international affairs, shaping the UN’s work on peace and security, human rights, sustainable development, and global crises. The person selected will lead the organization for the next five years and help define how the UN responds to challenges affecting our generation.

The Secretary-General is the UN’s chief administrative officer and its most prominent diplomat. The role includes leading the UN system, using diplomacy to prevent and resolve conflicts, advocating for human rights and international cooperation, and bringing urgent global issues to the attention of Member States. You can learn more about the position and the current selection process on the UN’s official Secretary-General selection page. 

Since the United Nations was founded in 1945, all nine Secretaries-General have been men. Appointing a woman would not mean choosing gender over qualifications; it would mean recognizing that experience, integrity, diplomatic skill and leadership are not limited to men, and ending an exclusion that has lasted for more than 80 years.

The United Nations has repeatedly called on governments to advance gender equality and women’s meaningful participation in decision-making, yet women remain significantly underrepresented in many of the spaces where international peace and security decisions are made. Choosing a woman as the next Secretary-General would therefore be an important opportunity for the UN to reflect in its own leadership the equality and inclusion it asks Member States to uphold.

A woman Secretary-General would not, by itself, transform the institution. But after nine men in the role, continuing to exclude women from the UN’s highest office should not be treated as inevitable.

UN Member States nominate candidates, who participate in public dialogues before the General Assembly. The 15-member Security Council then considers the candidates and recommends one to the General Assembly, which formally appoints the Secretary-General. Because the five permanent Security Council members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States — can block a recommendation, both Security Council diplomacy and broader Member State pressure matter. See the UN’s official explanation of the process. 

You will be contacting the government officials responsible for representing your country in foreign affairs and at the United Nations, primarily your Foreign Ministry and, where appropriate, your country’s Permanent Mission to the UN. When you select your country on the Take Action page, we will show you the relevant contact information and provide a ready-to-use message that you can review and personalize before sending.

The selection process is now in an active stage, with the Security Council conducting a series of informal straw polls to measure support for the candidates. Because the results can change quickly, we recommend following the regularly updated 1 for 8 Billion straw-poll tracker, PassBlue’s reporting on the Secretary-General race, and the UN’s official selection page for the latest information. As of October 2026, five Security Council straw polls have taken place, and the process is moving toward the stage where the positions of the veto-holding permanent members become especially important.