00:00You and all the candidates know all too well that the eventual choice in terms of who leads the U
00:07.N. next is dependent on whether a candidate can avoid opposition by the U.S., China, Russia, France and U
00:14.K., any of the five veto-wielding permanent members.
00:18How are you thinking about those five members and what their role is for the U.N. going forward?
00:29Thank you, Carl.
00:30The discussion so far with the five members that you mentioned of the Security Council and indeed the entire membership
00:38has been really, really good.
00:40I think it's important for us to have a close collaboration, should I be the Secretary General.
00:48These are very important countries.
00:50Of course, all 193 members of the U.N. are important, but these are five important countries.
00:54And the structure of the Security Council give them certain privileges.
01:00And so it's important for the Secretary General to be able to navigate the sort of chasms when those are
01:09there with the P5 members.
01:11And this is what I intend to do.
01:13As you know, I've served on the Security Council over the last two years and I've worked very closely with
01:18the P5.
01:19And so in some respects, they know me and they know how I operate.
01:23I held the position of leading Guyana's delegation.
01:27So I held the presidency twice.
01:30Of course, my country held the presidency.
01:32But I had to navigate some of those, I would say, difficult moments during that time.
01:38And they've seen that as well.
01:40So I look forward to it, should I be appointed.
01:42Ambassador Leake's Security Council results put you at around second place for the race for Secretary General.
01:48What are you seeing as the biggest hurdles for actually getting to first place?
01:52And how do you plan to get there in the coming months?
01:58Tim, it's up to the Security Council at the end of the day to recommend to the General Assembly.
02:04And I have outlined my vision.
02:08And over these last weeks, I've visited several capitals.
02:12I've spoken with all of the authorities of the 15 members.
02:17I've answered their questions.
02:19And so they know what I stand for, what I bring.
02:25At the end of the day, I think you need a Secretary General that, apart from competence,
02:30competence, that would be able to build bridges, that would be able to bring people together,
02:34but also that will have the energy and the versatility and the discernment
02:38that you need in this Chief Administrative Officer,
02:42because that's the description in the Charter of the Secretary General.
02:44Ambassador, one of the things that we think about here is that many have described
02:49the Secretary General position as a bit of a thankless job.
02:52So I guess the question is, why do you want it?
02:59My life, Carol, has been about serving.
03:03And I approach each one of those positions of service that you do not do it for tanks.
03:08But if you do get tanks, it's a bonus.
03:10But you do it for service.
03:12And I believe in the United Nations.
03:14I believe that it is a force for good.
03:16I believe it has all these challenges, but that we could make it better.
03:20And this is my approach to it.
03:22So not looking for tanks, not looking to display any ego,
03:28but just to make sure that we solve some of the issues that we have working very closely
03:33with member states, especially when you think about peace and security
03:36and the challenges that we face on that pillar, but also development and human rights.
03:41And this is how I would approach it.
03:43Well, you know, it's interesting, too.
03:44And I'm listening very, I think both of us are listening very closely to your words.
03:47You mentioned service.
03:48You mentioned delivering.
03:50You have said, though, the UN's problem is not a lack of commitments, but a failure to deliver.
03:55And what is the one thing that the UN does today that you would stop doing a secretary general?
04:04I have to look at where there are duplications.
04:07We have to stop duplications.
04:08And where there are overlaps, we have to streamline that.
04:11We have many agencies dealing with development.
04:14UNDP, FAO, WFP.
04:17Well, WFP more on the humanitarian side.
04:19But we have several of these agencies dealing with development.
04:23And when you talk to the ministers and the leaders on the ground, they want to see more of us,
04:29more of the delivery on the ground.
04:31And so we have to focus on that to make sure that we have a very good ratio of what
04:37we do in New York
04:39and what we do on the ground.
04:40If we look, for example, at the budget, the regular budget, quite a bit of that go into staffing.
04:49So we have to have a good balance between what goes into staffing, what goes into programming.
04:54And so these are some of the things that I would look at in terms of how we deliver on
04:58development.
04:58But also on peace and security, the Secretary General has certain tools at her disposal,
05:04good offices, process, mediation.
05:07And I would want to offer those tools to the parties to conflict right now.
05:12Tim and Carol, we have the highest number of conflicts since World War II.
05:16And so we need to make a dent in ending and preventing conflicts.
05:21The world is waiting for some good news on this.
05:23And I intend to work very closely with all, including the Security Council,
05:26to see how we could move the needle on that.
05:29I'm not oblivious that some are very difficult, but the UN was not made for fair weather.
05:34And we have to try.
05:35Yeah, look, I think it's fair to say, as we say all the time,
05:40a very complicated time when it comes to geopolitics, given what happened in Venezuela,
05:45what's going on between Israel and the U.S. and Iran and Russia's invasion of Ukraine,
05:51among other conflicts around the world.
05:53I'm curious, though, about your position coming from one of the UN's smaller member states.
05:58Does it give you maybe a fundamentally different view of what the UN does
06:03than someone who comes from a major power or a larger UN agency?
06:10The UN has over 100 small states.
06:13And one of the characteristics of small states is that we have to think global.
06:18We have to think big because our destinies are tied together.
06:22And the UN charter and international law and adherence to that,
06:26basically, it's our only guarantee for security and protection globally.
06:31And so that's an outlook that I bring from a small state.
06:35The second point is that small states do not have any big dog in any big fight, so to speak.
06:42So we are about bridge building.
06:44We are about reaching out.
06:46And this has been the story of my life, both as foreign minister,
06:50but also my service here during the last six years as permanent representative
06:54of the United Nations and on the Security Council.
06:58So perhaps it is a time for someone from a small state.
07:02Should I be appointed, I would be the secretary general from the smallest state ever.
07:07And I also come from a country that was built on the backs of people who came from different continents,
07:13plus our indigenous people.
07:15So we always had to work together to get along, to have unity and to have harmony.
07:19And I bring that approach to the secretary general's position, should I be appointed.
07:25Just got about 30 seconds left here.
07:27You know, we have spent all week watching presidents and leaders come to New York,
07:31give speeches, then go home.
07:32While wars, the UN has been unable to stop, continue.
07:37What is your argument to someone who is watching us right now or listening to us right now,
07:41who says, what is the UN actually for anymore?
07:48Well, wars have traditionally ended with diplomacy.
07:53And so we have to protect diplomacy and we have to protect multilateralism.
07:57And one takeaway that I have from this year's General Assembly,
08:01Tuesday morning as I sat in the General Assembly, it was a very full hall.
08:06I've never seen so many people here gathered at the UN in the six years
08:10that I've been a permanent representative here.
08:13And that, I take away a positive from that.
08:16Even with all the criticisms that we find against the UN or we hear against the UN,
08:22this is still the place where leaders come to talk about the challenges,
08:25but also to talk about the world they would like to see.
08:28And we have to encourage those discussions.
08:30But we have to go further than that to bring actual solutions on the ground.
08:35And this is what I intend to do.
