NEW YORK, Oct. 29, 2026 – Lana Nusseibeh, candidate for United Nations Secretary-General, yesterday set out a programme to rebuild trust in the United Nations through determined diplomacy, practical agreements for peace and reform focused on delivering results.
Speaking during her interactive dialogue with UN Member States and civil society, Nusseibeh said the United Nations is under strain at a time when the security, prosperity and future we share increasingly depend on decisions no country can make alone. Rebuilding the trust that makes those decisions possible, she said, must be central to the work of the UN.
“The United Nations was never meant to agree with the world. It was built to help the world agree.”
Drawing on more than a decade of experience at the United Nations, Nusseibeh said progress does not require differences between countries to disappear but requires determined diplomacy to work through them and find common ground.
She set out a programme spanning peace and security, development, human rights and reform, alongside the forces that will increasingly shape the UN’s work, including a growing global youth population, artificial intelligence and climate change.
Acting earlier for peace
Nusseibeh called for the Secretary-General’s good offices to be used earlier and with greater purpose, engaging before disputes harden into wars.
Where conflict has already begun, she proposed a relentless focus on practical “first agreements”, such as local truces, prisoner exchanges and corridors for food and medicine. Each can reduce suffering immediately and build the confidence needed to make larger agreements possible.
“Lasting peace is rarely made in a single stroke,” Nusseibeh said. “More often it is assembled from smaller agreements.”
Responding later to questions on the Secretary-General’s role in conflict, Nusseibeh affirmed her commitment to be “a political risk taker for peace. I pledge to take risks, even if failure seems the likely outcome. But not trying would be a marker of failure.”
Her approach would see the UN work flexibly with regional organizations, partners trusted by the parties and those closest to conflicts. The UN need not lead every process, she said, but must be ready to be present in every room where its involvement has value.
Nusseibeh pointed to her own diplomatic record, including co-leading negotiations with Japan on Resolution 2681, which condemned Taliban restrictions on Afghan women and girls, and leading negotiations on UNSC Resolution 2720, which established a mechanism to facilitate humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
Reform the UN around results
Nusseibeh said every promise the United Nations fails to deliver comes at a cost to the trust between the institution and the people it serves.
She called for a UN that is ambitious about its purpose but disciplined about where it can make the greatest difference, doing less where others can deliver and more where only the United Nations can.
Her reform programme would put results at the centre of decisions about resources, activities and mandates. For every activity, she said, the organisation should ask what it is trying to achieve, what it costs, what difference it will make and whether the UN is the institution best placed to deliver it.
“UN80 has made a start, and I will treat it as the floor, not the ceiling,” Nusseibeh stated.
During the exchange, she added: “I will be relentless about achieving results and holding up a scorecard against those results that you can visibly see and I can demonstrate to you.”
Development, human rights and the future
On development, Nusseibeh called for the UN to be judged by what each country can point to, not by what the system spends, with a focus on decent jobs, fairer debt solutions and development opportunities in fragile settings.
On human rights, she pledged to defend the Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with rigour and without double standards, saying the UN’s credibility depends on applying its commitments consistently.
She also highlighted the growing global youth population, artificial intelligence and climate change as forces that must shape how the UN approaches development and the future. Asked how the organisation could better engage younger generations, Nusseibeh said she would seek to bring their views “more closely into the decision making in this organization”, adding that the billion young people coming onto the job market in the next decade had “not had enough of our attention.”
Responding to questions on Sudan
In response to questions raised during the dialogue by civil society and the Deputy Permanent Representative of Sudan, Nusseibeh addressed the conflict in Sudan, accountability and the independence required of the Secretary-General.
“The horrific conflict in Sudan will be the litmus test of the success of an incoming Secretary-General. Stopping that conflict will be the litmus test of success,” she said. “If I were to become Secretary-General, Sudan would be a number one priority.”
She said the loss of human life was a tragedy and added: “The atrocities committed by the RSF are atrocious, and I would support the work of all UN fact-finding missions for accountability and transitional justice.”
Nusseibeh said the immediate priority was to stop the conflict, scale up humanitarian aid “both cross-border and cross-line”, protect humanitarian workers and pursue a political process alongside a cessation of hostilities that reflects the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people.
In a separate exchange with a Sudanese official, she reiterated her commitment to Article 100 of the Charter and said: “The order of business is an immediate cessation of hostilities, but also rapid, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access.”
“If selected, I will be everyone’s Secretary-General, and my loyalty will be to the UN and to the Charter,” she said, adding that she would work with Sudan and others able to use their leverage and contacts to help achieve peace.
Independence
Nusseibeh described independence as fundamental to the trust and credibility of the Secretary-General.
She has taken a leave of absence from her UAE Government responsibilities while pursuing her candidacy and said Article 100 of the UN Charter would guide her approach to the office.
She described the independence required by Article 100 as the foundation of the trust on which every Secretary-General depends, saying the office must serve the United Nations and its membership as a whole.
The interactive dialogue forms part of the formal UN process through which candidates for Secretary-General present their vision and answer questions from Member States and civil society.
Nusseibeh was formally nominated by the United Arab Emirates on October 21. She entered the race after the Security Council had not reached consensus around any of the existing candidates, and is making her case directly to Member States through the formal selection process.
About HE Lana Nusseibeh
Her Excellency Lana Nusseibeh is a candidate for Secretary-General of the United Nations and served as the UAE’s Permanent Representative to the UN from 2013 to 2024. She is UAE Minister of State and Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the European Union and the United Nations, and has taken a leave of absence from her government responsibilities while pursuing her candidacy.
During more than a decade in New York, she twice served as President of the Security Council, as a Vice-President of the General Assembly and as President of the Executive Board of UN Women. Her diplomatic record includes work on Afghanistan, Gaza and UN reform, including Security Council Resolutions 2681 and 2720.
Her candidacy is built around a programme of UN reform focused on determined diplomacy, earlier action to prevent conflict, practical agreements that build towards peace, development that produces results countries can point to, consistent application of human rights and international law, and a more focused and accountable United Nations.
Her Vision for the United Nations is available at www.lananusseibeh.org.
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info@lananusseibeh.org
