The UN in Crisis: Reform, Legitimacy and the Case for a Woman Secretary-General
An Interview with Bahiyyih Nakhjavani
February 18, 2026
Augusto Lopez-Claros (ALC): In a 2023 conversation I had with Susana Malcorra and Jody Williams they argued that appointing a woman as the next UN Secretary-General is not merely symbolic but essential to the Organization’s effectiveness at a time of mounting global crises. They identified four interlinked challenges confronting the UN: accelerating climate change, the erosion of the global nuclear order, widening economic inequality, and persistent gender discrimination. Both emphasized the strong empirical evidence showing that women’s participation in leadership and peace processes leads to more durable agreements, stronger institutions, and better governance outcomes. Gender equality, they argued, is not secondary to peace and security but integral to it. At a moment when the multilateral system is under severe strain, they made the case that women leaders bring distinct, problem-solving approaches that are urgently needed to renew the UN’s relevance and capacity to act.
In that conversation, we framed the case for a woman Secretary-General largely in terms of effectiveness — better governance outcomes, more durable peace processes, stronger institutions. Yet the international system has since grown more fragmented, more polarized, and more distrustful of multilateral institutions. Looking at the world today, what feels fundamentally different from 2023, and what patterns remain disturbingly intact? Has the argument now shifted from one of performance to one of legitimacy and moral authority? And if so, what might a woman leader be uniquely positioned to recover for the United Nations at this moment of institutional crisis?
Bahiyyih Nakhjavani (BN): I read your 2023 conversation with Susana Malcorra and Jody Williams with great interest and considerable hope. The interest has not diminished, but the hope, perhaps, has. This is not because your arguments in favour of appointing a woman as the next UN Secretary-General are in any way less convincing, nor because I think gender equality is any less important, when it comes to the establishment of peace and security in our world. Far from it. Indeed, if anything, the challenges you identified just three short years ago have increased in severity, the dangers have intensified, and the global crises multiplied. The problems of leadership we face today have greatly worsened and the need to address them is more urgent now than ever before. It is just that I wonder whether our ability to solve them is necessarily related to questions of gender.
ALC: How much more dangerous has the world become — and how much more fragile is the United Nations today?
BN: Well, we could list the usual suspects. Climate change, economic inequality and the control of nuclear and technological proliferation have been eroded by the rise of populism and autocracy in both east and west. Fundamental rights established by the Geneva convention are being questioned and in some countries dismantled. What minimal progress we thought we had achieved, in the course of the 20th century, concerning various forms of discrimination is being overtly threatened today. Such hard-won rights as freedom from violence and equal access for girls and women to higher education have been crucially undermined, rights which as you have effectively shown, ultimately pave the way to their participation in leadership and peace processes, and to their contribution to durable agreements, stronger institutions, and better governance in the world.
Indeed, as you point out, the multilateral system is truly under strain, a degree of strain that is more severe than it has ever faced in the past. The rule of international law is being systematically eroded. Time tested alliances have not only been threatened but ruptured. Guardrails against nuclear proliferation are collapsing before our eyes. And most concerning of all, the very institutions put in place at the end of WWII which were intended to ensure against the erosion of such rights and the dangers of such wars have in recent months been repeatedly discredited. International frontiers have been violated with stark impunity. The spectre of genocide now hovers over several regions of the world and when we look for accountability – among leaders and their governments – it is increasingly hard to find.
And at this fatal hour you propose a woman should be appointed as the next Secretary-General of the United Nations? At this moment of crisis, you are suggesting the leadership of a woman can renew the UN’s relevance and capacity to act?
Well, you know better than most how thoroughly flawed this brave institution is in this period of its history, how desperately it needs systemic reform, how incapable, in its current configuration, it is of even addressing, let alone resolving, some of the world’s more urgent problems. The sclerosis implicit in its Security Council, the dogma of national sovereignty which cripples its effectiveness and exposes it to economic strangulation, and its lack of military or even moral “teeth,” as the saying goes, have exposed it to criticism and condemned it to growing irrelevance. Moreover, because Secretaries-General are ultimately selected with the decisive influence of the five permanent members of the Security Council, they have often owed their position to those very powers whose conduct they must scrutinize. With a few notable exceptions, many have therefore been cautious figures — reluctant to risk the wrath of the P5, mindful of reappointment, and inclined to lead from behind rather than confront the structural paralysis that constrains them.
And now, when erosion of trust in multilateralism and growing global fragmentation is rampant, when the UN is at its most weakened, most enfeebled, most seemingly impotent, when the international climate is at its most critical and dangerous and funds are literally running out, are you seriously suggesting that a woman could bring her problem-solving approach to these dilemmas and solve these crises?
ALC: What are the risks in appointing a woman at such a moment? I would have thought there was more to gain than to lose from her leadership, in such circumstances.
BN: May I play the devil’s advocate? Doesn’t it seem rather ironic to you to propose such a role to a woman, under the banner of gender equality and respect, just when the risks of failure are most grave? Isn’t it rather incongruous to emphasize a woman’s leadership capacity at a time when the prospects of leading the UN out of the quagmire into which we have collectively placed it is least likely? Forgive my scepticism. Cynicism does not necessarily advance the argument and is all too facile (and possibly cowardly) a way of approaching a dilemma of this magnitude. Although I know it is very far from your motivations in this conversation, I might almost think the idea was misogynistic …!
I believe the term “glass cliff” has been applied in such circumstances. Analogous to the “glass ceiling”, this concept identifies the false promise of power dangled before women at particularly critical times when their attempts to resolve a crisis are doomed. One example can be seen in the political shenanigans surrounding Brexit, when Theresa May crossed the hallowed threshold of 10 Downing Street only to inherit the impossible task of implementing a policy which she had not personally endorsed. Another might be identified in the doomed attempts by prominent women in recent US presidential campaigns to appeal with logic and decorum to an electorate heavily influenced by demagogy and populism. History bears witness to many such acts of bravery or foolhardiness by women, from Joan of Arc to the Suffragettes. And they have not all failed. Indeed, they have often inspired others and been recognised centuries later as standard bearers for causes that were not only justified but vital for the well-being of society. I have no doubt that today, too, although the job of Secretary General of the UN will involve an unenviable dimension of “austerity management” which is unpopular even at the best of times, there will probably be no shortage of courageous women who will come forward and offer to clean up the mess. Heroism is not an exclusively male domain and at the risk of falling into generalisations, it should be admitted that women have a curious propensity to rise to the challenge of crisis. They have, after all, as you point out, less to lose!
ALC: Beyond symbolism and irony, what are we truly asking of a woman candidate — reform, representation, or rescue?
BN: Well said! You put me to shame. Setting the devil and his advocate aside for a moment, I would wholeheartedly agree that at such a time as this, a woman should certainly be encouraged to offer her candidacy to be Secretary General of the UN. It would be far more than symbolic gesture even if she is bound to fail. It would mean a great deal to 51% of the world’s population, especially those among them deprived of opportunities to improve their own lot, to see a woman in such a position of leadership and to believe that she would be their advocate. It would be particularly significant to do this when increasing numbers of women, in so-called “advanced” economies, are being drawn into the pronatalist movement whose racial and political motives urge them not to pursue further education, not to improve their intellectual or artistic potential, not to work but to stay at home and have more babies.
But this begs the real question, which you already explored three years ago, namely, why would a woman be more qualified to undertake this task than a man? What qualities does a woman have to create more durable agreements and stronger institutions for the governance of nations? And why would a woman’s leadership succeed more than a man’s right now? Since you have yourself explored this question at some length, with all the demographic and economic data and statistics at your disposal, there is no need for me to repeat your arguments. But may I turn your conclusions towards the more relevant question at this time, which is: why would a woman be better equipped to initiate and implement the changes needed for the United Nations to function more efficiently just when it is at its weakest?
Because that is, after all, our current crisis: the dysfunctionality of the United Nations. Just when we most urgently need the nations to unite so as to address all our global problems, the UN has lost its authority. It is not only climate change, uncontrolled nuclear proliferation, widening regional wars and the flow of refugees in the world; it is not only the rise of fascism and neo-imperialism and the violation of international frontiers among nations; it is not only the race for artificial intelligence and a growing abyss between the elite rich and the masses of the poor at a global level; but above all the inability and lack of credibility of our current international institutions. They have entered a period of transition and need reform. They must be changed. And why would a woman be better able to guide the United Nations out of this period of transition, through change towards necessary reform?
The decisive question is not whether the next Secretary-General should be a woman or a man, but whether Member States are prepared to permit genuine independence.
ALC: So let us address this question head on: what kind of leadership does a transitional age genuinely require?
BN: During a transition period, when old norms are relegated to the ashes and new ones not yet conceived, our very definitions of leadership may need to change. It is not only a question of what kind of leadership is most effective to re-invent the UN; it is also which sort is recognised in our world today? Loud or soft, a strongman or political bridge-builder? Do we prefer someone who imposes his will on others, who insists on his own opinion, who lays down the law? Or, conversely, or do we need a leadership that is consultative, that is concerned with consensus, one that is honest, modest and attempts to achieve goals for the benefit of others? As you have already shown in your previous work, it would seem, though certainly not in every case or across the board, that women tend to excel in consultation, in teamwork, in partnership and consensus-building. Is that what is needed now? Or not?
I cannot help thinking, Augusto, that with the systemic problems of the UN in our days, as well as the critical dangers we are facing in the world, the next Secretary General of the UN needs to be a person, whether man or woman, of the highest moral standards, of extraordinary integrity, of determined resolve to serve the common good rather than the self, someone willing to be pilloried for her principles, ridiculed for her values and blamed for her actions. Someone, in a word, who would undertake this thankless task without any expectations of reward. It is true that women have frequently been relegated and risen to such tasks.
But perhaps the decisive question is not whether the next Secretary-General should be a woman or a man, but whether Member States are prepared to permit genuine independence at the helm of the Organization. Without the courage of governments to loosen their grip on power, to accept reform, and to tolerate principled leadership that does not defer to geopolitical convenience, even the most capable Secretary-General will remain constrained.
If a woman is chosen, she must not be elevated as a symbol or positioned as a sacrificial figure, but empowered as a reformer. Otherwise, the reckoning before us will not be gendered — it will be systemic. And history will judge not only the Secretary-General, but the nations that refused to let her lead.
