A 34-year-old Indian-origin employee at the UN has announced that she is running to be it’s next Secretary-General, throwing her hat in the ring against the world organisation’s current chief Antonio Guterres, saying she refuses to be a bystander and it is now time for a new UN. Arora Akanksha, whose work includes managing audits at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), said she will run for the post of the world’s top diplomat. “People in my position aren’t supposed to stand up to the ones in charge. We are supposed to wait our turn, hop on the hamster wheel, go to work, keep our heads down and accept that the world is the way it is,” Akanksha said in a two-and-a-half-minute campaign video posted online.
According to her profile on her website UNOW.org, Akanksha graduated from York University, Toronto with a Bachelor of Administrative Studies. She received her Master in Public Administration from Columbia University. Her profile states that she was recruited at the UN to “help with the financial reforms of the organisation” and her work included updating financial regulations and rules of the UN and managing the internal and external audits at UNDP.
‘For 75 years, the UN has not fulfilled its promise to the world – refugees haven’t been protected, humanitarian aid has been minimal, and technology and innovation has been on the back-burner. We deserve a UN that leads progress,” she said. ‘That is why I am running for the Secretary-General of the United Nations. I refuse to be a by-stander. I will not accept this is the best the UN can do,’ she said in the video.
Last month Guterres, 71 had confirmed that he will seek a second five-year term as chief of the world organisation. Guterres’s first term ends on December 31 this year and the term of the next Secretary-General will begin on January 1, 2022. In the United Nations, the Secretary-General is elected on the basis of the recommendation of the General Assembly Security Council. At the same time, permanent members of the United Nations can also impose their veto in some name. United Nations spokesman Stephen Dujarric has stated on the candidature of Akanksha Arora that ‘Antonio Guterres is a candidate for UN Secretary-General and the selection of UN Secretary-General depends on the member countries, so I do not know much more at this time.
