The United Nations is approaching another defining moment.
Its survival is not in question. Its authority is.
Across the world, wars are disrupting food and energy markets, finance and trade are increasingly instruments of geopolitical pressure, critical minerals are becoming strategic assets and artificial intelligence is compressing the time available for governments to respond to crises.
Yet the United Nations often remains organised around separate problems when the world increasingly experiences them as one.
That is the central test for whoever succeeds António Guterres as the UN's tenth Secretary-General on January 1, 2027.
For Ghana and Africa, the question is, therefore, bigger than where the next Secretary-General comes from. It is what kind of leadership the continent should expect from the person who occupies the world's most prominent multilateral diplomatic office.
Africa has a particular reason to ask that question. Kofi Annan's tenure demonstrated that a Secretary-General does not have to choose between defending the United Nations and changing it. Annan understood the institution from the inside and recognised that its authority depended on its ability to adapt.
There is a sense in which the current moment could become another Kofi Annan moment.
Complexity of choice
The field reflects the complexity of the choice. Guyana's Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett brings more than two decades of public service, including service as foreign minister and Guyana's Permanent Representative to the UN. She played a leading role during Guyana's 2024-25 Security Council tenure and has experience facilitating intergovernmental negotiations.
Argentina's Rafael Mariano Grossi brings a very different form of diplomatic experience. As Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, he has operated at the intersection of nuclear security, international law and major-power rivalry, including sustained diplomacy over the safety of Ukraine's nuclear facilities.
Ecuador's María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés offers extensive experience in both national government and multilateral diplomacy. A former foreign minister and President of the UN General Assembly, her record includes managing complex intergovernmental negotiations and advocating institutional reform.
Ivonne A-Baki, also from Ecuador and nominated by Tonga, brings a career rooted in diplomacy and peace negotiations. Her record includes involvement in the Ecuador-Peru peace process, senior diplomatic postings and ministerial responsibility for foreign trade and industrialisation.
Senegal's Macky Sall offers the perspective of a former African head of state. President from 2012 to 2024, he entered the contest with four decades of public service and a record focused on economic development, infrastructure, energy and social policy.
Uganda's Olara Otunnu represents another distinctly African experience. A former Ugandan foreign minister and UN Under-Secretary-General, he served as the first Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict and helped establish international mechanisms for monitoring and responding to grave violations against children in war. He also has a direct connection to the history of the Secretary-General selection process: in 1981, while Uganda's Permanent Representative and President of the Security Council, he helped devise the informal straw-balloting system still used today.
Then there is Costa Rica's Rebeca Grynspan. An economist and former Vice President of Costa Rica, Grynspan has moved between national government, regional diplomacy and the UN system. She has served as Secretary-General of the Ibero-American Conference, UN Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of UNDP, and since 2021 has led UN Trade and Development, becoming its first female Secretary-General.
Her current position in the contest is significant but should not be mistaken for a conclusion. In the third informal Security Council straw poll on 18 September, Grynspan received nine "encourage" votes, compared with eight for Rodrigues-Birkett. The process remains open and ultimately requires the agreement of the five permanent members before a recommendation can go to the General Assembly.
What makes her record particularly relevant to Africa is the intersection between diplomacy and economic transformation.
At UN Trade and Development, Grynspan has consistently argued that development cannot be separated from trade, finance, industrialisation and productive capacity. In Africa, she has engaged directly with questions around regional integration, value addition and the continent's ability to capture more of the value generated by its natural resources. In February, for example, she was in Ethiopia and Zambia addressing questions of trade, industrialisation and value addition in critical minerals.
Her experience also illustrates what operational diplomacy can look like. Her UNCTAD record includes involvement in the Black Sea Initiative, through which the UN, Türkiye, Russia and Ukraine created a mechanism that enabled the export of more than 33 million tonnes of grain.
That matters because the next Secretary-General will inherit a world in which diplomacy cannot be separated neatly into peace, development, trade, finance or technology.
Who can help make the UN matter again?
Africa should, therefore, resist reducing the contest to geography. A Latin American or Caribbean Secretary-General would not automatically represent Africa, just as an African Secretary-General would not automatically resolve the continent's challenges.
The question should be whether the next occupant of the office can make Africa's voice carry greater weight while keeping the UN a place where competing interests can still negotiate.
That requires more than speeches about reform. Reform means deciding what the UN must do, what it should stop doing, where authority should sit and how limited resources can produce measurable results. It means overcoming institutional resistance rather than simply redesigning organisational charts.
That is why the next Secretary-General will need more than diplomatic stature. The office requires political judgement, economic understanding, negotiating ability and the capacity to translate narrow areas of agreement into practical action.
Kofi Annan's legacy offers a useful measure. His importance was not simply that he was an African who reached the highest international office. It was that he understood that defending the UN's purpose sometimes required challenging the way the organisation operated.
For Ghana and Africa, that may be the most important question as the current contest enters its decisive phase: not who represents a region, but who can help make the United Nations matter again.
