A Feminist Future for the UN: Why the Next Secretary-General Must Champion Civil Society

By Jesselina Rana and Mandeep S.Tiwana
NEW YORK, May 5 2025 – Climate change is threatening to engulf small island states such as Maldives and the Marshall Islands. Gender apartheid is still practiced in theocratic states such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. War crimes and genocide are taking place in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Sudan.

Hunger looms large in the Congo and Yemen. People continue to be arbitrarily imprisoned in places as far apart as El-Salvador and Eritrea. Russia continues to violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity while China and the United States look the other way despite being permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Even a casual observer can concede that the UN’s mission to maintain peace and security, protect human rights and promote social progress along-with respect for international law is in crisis.

As the United Nations approaches its 80th anniversary this October, a pivotal question looms: Who should lead it into its next era? Surely, in a world impacted by multiple intersecting crises, the answer cannot be business as usual. After nearly eight decades, nine Secretary-Generals, and zero leaders from civil society—let alone a woman—the time for a transformative shift is now.

A movement is underway to demand a visionary Secretary-General who embodies feminist, principled, and courageous leadership. We need a world leader who will boldly stand up for human rights and ensure the inclusion of voices that have for too long been pushed to the margins, even as the UN faces questions about its financial sustainability.

Members of the Sub-commission on the Status of Women, from Lebanon, Poland, Denmark, Dominican Republic and India, prepare for a press conference at Hunter College in New York on 14 May 1946. Credit: UN Photo

Notably, since its inception the UN has been presided over by men, which is less than representative of the global community that the UN serves. Appointing a woman as Secretary-General would not only break this historical pattern but signal a commitment to gender equality and inspire women and girls worldwide, demonstrating that the highest levels of international leadership are accessible to all, regardless of gender. 92 states have already expressed support for a woman Secretary General.

The current Secretary General, Antonio Guterres is due to step down at end of December 2026 upon completion of his second term. The UN Charter mandates the appointment of the head of the UN by the General Assembly following the recommendation of the Security Council. Essentially, 9 out of 15 members of the Security Council must agree on the final recommendation to the General Assembly which then makes a decision on the final candidate through a majority vote.

All permanent members of the UN Security Council have the right to veto any candidate before a recommendation is made to the UN General Assembly. A lot of behind the scenes political wrangling takes place at this stage to select a candidate who will be acceptable to powerful states that seek to exert control over the UN, which is why the 1 for 8 billion campaign are demanding a process that is fair, transparent, inclusive, feminist and rigorous.

It’s no secret that the UN’s overly bureaucratic approaches and the inclination of its leadership to play safe in the face of multiple intersecting crises, including glaring violations of the UN Charter by powerful states are pushing the institution from being ineffective to becoming irrelevant.

Although many within the UN lay the blame on powerful states for co-opting the institution to assert narrow national interests and for not paying their financial dues, the problems run much deeper.

Ironically, civil society actors who work with the UN to fulfill its mission are being sidelined. In last year’s negotiations on the UN’s Pact for the Future and in current Financing for Development conversations, civil society delegates have struggled to find space to have their voices adequately included.

Many of us in civil society who have supported the UN through decades in the common quest to create more peaceful, just, equal and sustainable societies are deeply concerned about the current state of affairs.

Civil society actors have been instrumental in shaping some of the UN’s signature achievements such as the Paris Agreement on climate, the universal Sustainable Development Goals and the landmark Treaty on Enforced Disappearances. But diplomats representing repressive regimes are increasingly seeking to limit civil society participation.

These tactics are not isolated acts. They represent a coordinated, global assault on civic space and democratic norms. They are also contributory factors to the erosion of public trust in multilateral bodies which is threatening the legitimacy of the UN itself.

Tellingly, the long-standing demand for the appointment of a civil society envoy at the UN to streamline civil society participation across the UN system and to drive the UN’s outreach to civil society beyond major UN hubs has gone unheeded by the UN’s leadership.

Over the last decade and a half, civil society organisations and activists have faced a relentless assault from authoritarian-populist governments. The situation is alarming: latest findings of the CIVICUS Monitor, a participatory research collaboration, affirm that over 70% of the global population now live under repressive civic space conditions.

Across continents, activists are being illegally surveilled, arbitrarily imprisoned, and physically attacked. The right to peaceful protest is being quashed even in democracies. In far too many countries, independent civil society organisations are being dismantled and prevented from accessing funding. Just in the last two months, countries as diverse as Peru and Slovakia have introduced repressive anti-NGO laws.

As civic space closes, major financial supporters —from the US and UK to several EU states—are slashing official development assistance, thereby depriving civil society of crucial resources to resist these restrictions. A recent CIVICUS survey confirms that frontline efforts in health, civic engagement, and human rights are among the hardest hit.

The next Secretary-General must meet the crisis head-on. They must make the defence of civic space a strategic imperative. That means speaking out against governments that silence dissent and ensuring safe and meaningful participation for civil society at all levels. An effective way to do this would be to report on the implementation of the 2020 UN guidance note on civic space and accelerate its mainstreaming across the UN’s agencies and offices around the world.

Civil society remains a resilient engine for global progress. From climate justice and anti-corruption work to feminist organising, civil society groups often lead where governments and multilateral institutions falter. The UN would be well served by a Secretary General who sees civil society less as an after-thought and more as a co-creator of global policy who embodies feminist leadership principles and who understands that multilateralism cannot function without grassroots engagement—that justice, sustainability, and peace are not top-down aspirations, but bottom-up imperatives.

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

Jesselina Rana is the UN Advisor at CIVICUS’s New York office. Mandeep S. Tiwana is Interim Co-Secretary General of CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance.