Dr. Shashi Tharoor spoke today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC on the role of the UN, those problems which continue to demand an international response, and his own campaign for UNSG.
While acknowledging that the UN has faced setbacks and failures since 1945, Dr. Tharoor noted the United Nations’ “unquestioned leadership, experience and authority” in addressing humanitarian concerns and its historic and on-going role in conflict containment. He elaborated, however, that today the United Nations must continue to address the globalization of security concerns, or “problems without passports”
“…the kinds of problems that pass all kinds of frontiers uninvited. You can name them – climate change, drug trafficking, epidemics, refugee movements, and today, terrorism. The solutions too can have no passports because no one country or group of countries, however rich and however powerful, can tackle them alone. It is the resolution of these problems that remains at the very core of the UN’s activities.
On his campaign for UNSG, Tharoor noted the “major, unspecified political responsibilites” of the UNSG and the skills that the incoming holder of that office will have to possess.
“To be successful, [the UNSG] must conceive and project a vision of the UN as it should be, while administering and defending the organization as it is. Truly an impossible job, but understanding what it takes is the first step to doing it well.
“I come to you, dear friends, with 28 years of service to the United Nations in a wide variety of areas – refugees and humanitarian work, peacekeeping, service in the Secretary General office, and management of a large department I am proud to say I’ve been able to reform. In the process, I’ve seen from the inside and from the ground up most of the major types of challenges that a Secretary General can expect to be faced with.
“I believe I can handle them well.”
As UNSG, Tharoor said his focus would be on improving the operational capacities of the UN and strengthening the professionalism of the international civil service, while continuing to build on the reforms made in the past several months.
During the Q&A session, Tharoor provided insightful and informative responses to questions on peacekeeping management and operations, development, UN engagement with non-state actors, Darfur and Iran, and his management of the UN Department of Public Information. I had the pleasure of asking Dr. Tharoor about the transparency evident in this year’s selection process and his own campaign outreach to government officials.
“I have had the privilege of meeting with government leaders, principally foreign ministers in many countries – mostly, but not exclusively, Security Council members, because if a government is interested in talking to me, I am interested in talking to them.
“The regional group meetings have been terrific…about 2 to 2 1/2 hours of genuine give and take with the ambassadors, starting off with something like a 20 minute statement by me and then a real exchange of questions….[I]f nothing else comes out of this…the process will have prompted a significant degree of reflection on the part of the members of the organization about its nature, its purpose, its future direction. That can only be healthy, whatever becomes the outcome.”
Before the distinguished crowd, Dr. Tharoor also recognized and complimented the effort of this blog, noting,
“Tony Fleming runs a very fine website called UNSG.org which, I must say, I don’t often have enough time to look at, but people who do look at it tell me it’s the gold standard these days on SG elections… Let’s all hope that it itself becomes an embodiment of the transparency that you are asking about.”
Such praise belongs equally to those officials and friends who have shared their insight and contributed to this effort.
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