Vision Statement
by María Fernanda Espinosa

The United Nations was created to prevent war, ad yet it frequently arrives after the worst has already happened. I will place peace and prevention at the center of the office of the Secretary-General.
Member States, large and small alike, expect a Secretary-General who helps create the conditions for dialogue and de-escalation, and places the UN’s administrative and operational capacities to preserve peace and international stability. The Secretary-General must be willing and able, to engage early, discreetly, and persistently. She must also be both impartial and consistent, bringing the same seriousness, urgency and respect for international law, to every situation.
In an environment of heightened geopolitical tension, prevention must return to the core of the UN’s peace and security architecture. Prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and post-conflict peacebuilding must be staffed, funded, and politically supported as parts of a single continuum. Today, funding for crisis response far outweighs investment in early warning and preventive diplomacy. Prevention saves lives and resources and must be given the same level of political priority, institutional attention, and financial support as conflict response.
As Secretary-General, I will establish a Prevention and Early Action Hub reporting directly to my office: a consolidated capacity for risk analysis, early warning, and rapid political engagement.

This Hub will integrate signals from across the UN system into a coherent political assessment that triggers timely action.

Its purpose is simple: to ensure that warnings reaches decision-makers early, that diplomatic options are identified quickly, and that the Secretary-General can act before escalation narrows the available space.
The UN must also respond more effectively to threats such as transnational organized crime, which is a major driver of instability in several regions, including Latin America and the Caribbean, with direct impact on governance, development, and regional security. Addressing these challenges requires integrated responses that connect the normative authority and political decision-making of the UN’s principal organs with the field presence and operational capacities of the entities working on the ground. Transnational organized crime is a threat to international peace and security that was not envisioned in 1945, and for which the UN’s response must adapt.
Adaptation to emerging realities, needs a renewed approach to collaboration with regional organizations, national leaders, and diplomatic coalitions engaged in peace efforts, while preserving the UN’s role as the final custodian of universal legitimacy, international law, and protection for the most vulnerable. The UN does not hold a monopoly on peacemaking. Its role is to support, connect, and, where necessary, help sustain political processes that might otherwise falter, while remaining available as a trusted channel when other avenues close. At the same time, we must be clear about the limits of what the UN can achieve where political conditions constrain collective action. In such contexts, the Organization’s role is to preserve space for dialogue, reduce the risk of escalation, and manage the consequences of conflicts.

As Secretary-General, I will draw on the UN’s analytical and strategic capacities to provide Member States with rapid assessments on where progress remains possible, where priorities need adjusting, and what practical steps could accelerate implementation before 2030.

At the same time, we must start moving decisively toward a new development approach that places national and local ownership at its core but also recognizes the increased opportunities that have opened up with closer regional cooperation. As Secretary-General, I will prioritize frameworks and partnerships for broader resource mobilization, including stronger domestic resource mobilization, boosting investment and jobs, economic diversification and closer South-South integration and cooperation.

The final stretch of the SDGs (2027-30) should be used to strengthen national capacities, enabling local governments, enterprises, institutions, and communities to lead implementation with greater autonomy, accountability and effectiveness. This is not about reducing the UN’s commitment to development, but about delivering it differently: shifting from direct implementation toward support, coordination, resources and capacity-building.
In this model, the UN remains at the heart of development cooperation, but not at the center of implementation. It provides strategic guidance, normative standards, foresight, and technical expertise, while supporting Member States in building resilient and effective national systems. Funds, programs, and agencies must operate to enable national capacity, in development and humanitarian contexts, and as a safety net in situations of fragility and crisis.

For this model to work, governments need access to stable and affordable sources of finance, both public and private. Official Development Assistance remains vital for vulnerable communities, and sustains many of the UN’s most tangible outcomes, including health, education and support for children and families. But it represents a fraction of what is needed. 

Crucially, these efforts must not deepen debt distress. Many developing countries are forced to spend more on servicing their debt than on essential services. Debt has become a structural constraint to development, absorbing fiscal space, limiting public investment, and weakening capacity to respond to shocks and social needs. I will seek to encourage a more coherent international response to the pressures facing highly indebted and climate-vulnerable countries.
 
While the UN cannot and should not attempt to replace the international financial institutions, it can help create the political conditions for change. Under my leadership, the UN will use its convening power, analytical capacity, and universal legitimacy to support Member States in advancing debt restructuring, identifying more innovative responses to debt crises, and to build a broader consensus on reforming international financial architecture, to better reflect contemporary realities.
 
As Secretary-General, I will support the implementation, monitoring, and mobilization of political and financial support for intergovernmental agreements aimed at reducing development gaps and addressing the special needs and unlocking the great potential of Africa, Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs), and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), while advancing the broader priorities of developing countries across the multilateral system. This also requires close engagement with regional organizations and political platforms, including the African Union, CARICOM, ASEAN, CELAC, the League of Arab States, and others, as well as with key partners such as the European Union, whose engagement and support remain essential to building credible and effective multilateral solutions.

 

Governments, corporations, and research institutions are taking decisions, often in isolation from one another, that will shape people’s lives for decades. No single state can manage them alone, no corporation has the legitimacy to govern them for the world, and no purely technical body can generate the political confidence such decisions require.

This is precisely where the UN’s irreplaceable value lies, not as a regulator, not as a rule-writer, but as the only institution with the universal legitimacy, political neutrality, and convening power to bring every relevant voice to the same table. The role of the UN is not to govern these transitions, but to ensure that the conversations shaping them are genuinely global, inclusive, and consequential.

On energy, the UN must strengthen its role as a platform for cooperation, as well as its ability to support Member States during energy shocks. Questions of energy security and access, affordability, sustainability, trade, and strategic autonomy, are central to global stability. The transition to new energy systems is reshaping patterns of dependence and competition. The UN cannot determine energy policy, but it can help Member States work together to manage the global implications of these shifts and to build frameworks that reduce risk, adapt to shocks and expand shared benefit.

These vulnerabilities become most visible when geopolitical tensions disrupt markets and supply chains. The consequences are often felt most severely by vulnerable economies and people, particularly in the developing world. As Secretary-General, I would seek to establish a Global Energy Security coordination mechanism to bring together Member States, and other key actors, to support in managing the consequences of global shocks, including their impacts on energy access and affordability, food security, development prospects, and social stability.

On technology, I will build on the Global Digital Compact, adopted as part of the Pact for the Future, through a sustained Secretary-General’s Dialogue on Emerging Technologies. This will not be another talking shop. It will be a structured, high-level convening process that brings together heads of government, scientists, civil society, and responsible private-sector actors to reduce strategic misunderstandings, broaden participation, and build practical pathways toward shared guardrails.
Both AI capabilities and critical mineral extraction, are unevenly distributed and developing at breakneck speed. Smaller and developing nations risk becoming recipients of choices outside their control. The result: a fragmented and increasingly unstable landscape, with high risk of miscalculation, misuse, and deepening inequality.

The UN can help change that not by claiming authority, but by creating the conditions under which all States (including those that might not otherwise engage directly with each other) can identify shared concerns, reduce risks, and begin building trust. The Secretary-General’s good offices are as relevant to technological and economic change, as they have historically been to armed conflict.

We cannot close the development gap without addressing the digital divide and expanding energy access. A UN that is serious about equity cannot treat these transformations as conversations among the already connected. Technology transfer, capacity-building, and inclusive participation must be built into every global initiative.

Internally, the UN must modernize its own operations. Digital transformation will reduce the Organization’s administrative footprint and support better decision-making, information flows, accountability and transparency. Deploying AI where it adds real value is both an efficiency imperative and a signal that the UN practices what it preaches.
 

The Pact for the Future is the political response to that reality. It reflects a shared recognition by Member States, that ambition without implementation will not restore trust in the UN. I see the Pact not only as a statement of collective intent, but as a test of whether the UN system can organize itself around delivery across development, peace and security, and human rights without weakening any pillar in the process. As Secretary-General, I will treat the Pact for the Future as a reference for a system-wide delivery mandate.

The delivery gap is most visible in country contexts, where national institutions and communities confront overlapping crises, and UN entities must operate as a single system rather than in parallel. Shared country strategies, joint delivery platforms, and common services must become standard practice, embedded in how the system is managed and evaluated.

The UN80 Initiative represents an important first step toward making this shift real — efficiency matters. UN80 will only succeed if it is understood as modernization for results, not austerity disguised as reform. Cutting without prioritizing and streamlining without strengthening delivery and accountability will weaken the UN’s capacity and further erode trust.

For that reason, the General Assembly’s landmark resolution of 23 March 2026 on mandate creation, implementation, and review is strategically important. It establishes a clear framework for how mandates should be designed and managed across the system, reaffirming that mandates must deliver maximum impact for Member States and the people we serve, preserving the intergovernmental nature of decision-making.

Drawing on my experience of chairing the Open-ended Working Group on the Revitalization of the General Assembly and as President of the General Assembly, I will support Member States in making mandate review a permanent discipline rather than a one-off exercise driven solely by financial crisis. This means instituting predictable relevance reviews, stronger prioritization, and better mechanisms to reduce duplication, so that the UN focuses resources where it is uniquely positioned to add value.

I will also work to reduce counterproductive institutional competition among UN entities. Fragmentation, weak coordination, and competition for visibility and resources undermine results and damage credibility. A stronger UN requires incentives that reward system-wide outcomes rather than silo performance. Collaboration and joint delivery must be reflected in leadership performance and in how the system allocates and evaluates resources.

Finally, closing the delivery gap requires stronger accountability. UN entities are not autonomous islands. They are part of a single institutional system and must demonstrate performance, efficiency, and impact. Under my leadership, oversight, audit, inspection, and evaluation functions must be strengthened and better coordinated so that duplication and persistent underperformance are identified early and corrected decisively. Accountability should be built into governance as a continuous, results-based evaluation and not an afterthought or a post-facto exercise.
 

The United Nations must be financed to reflect the seriousness and scope of its mandates and what it does well in terms of performance and addressing acute needs. Financial governance is a political question of priorities, discipline, accountability, and institutional credibility. Member States hold budgetary authority through the General Assembly, and the Secretary-General’s responsibility is to ensure that every financial resource entrusted to the UN is managed with transparency, coherence, and a measurable impact.
The UN operates through distinct financial realities, each requiring a clear and differentiated approach. First, the regular budget is the UN’s institutional backbone. It sustains the Secretariat’s core capacities, the servicing of intergovernmental bodies and mandates, and the managerial functions without which the United Nations system cannot act coherently. When the regular budget is destabilized and arrears grow, system-wide coordination weakens, response times slow, institutional memory and confidence dampen, and fragmentation increases across the system.

Second, peacekeeping financing forms an integral part of upholding the credibility of the UN’s peace and security mandate. Peace operations cannot be managed effectively through short-term financial uncertainty. Delayed reimbursements, operational gaps, and unpredictable financing diminish missions, undermine the confidence of troop- and police-contributing countries, and reduce the UN’s capacity to preserve peace. Prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding are one dynamic continuum. However, relatively more costly peacekeeping operations should be subject to constant evaluation and sustained corrective measures to accelerate steps toward their eventual consolidation, drawdown, and withdrawal. Their financing must reflect that strategic reality.

Third, the UN’s operational resources, the voluntary and often highly earmarked funding that sustains development, human rights, and many other field-based activities, are essential for delivering tangible impact.

But they are also structurally vulnerable to volatility and fragmentation. The more these resources are narrowly earmarked and short-term in nature, the harder it becomes to build integrated, results-oriented country strategies, invest seriously in prevention, and sustain results across the political cycles of both recipient and donor partner countries alike. Funding must always follow agreed priorities, not contribute to institutional fragmentation across the UN’s operations.
 
Fourth, humanitarian continuity is not discretionary, to be turned on and off with callous disregard for immediate human consequences. It requires safeguarding core life-saving capabilities, preserving operational readiness, and ensuring that modernization efforts do not inadvertently punish the most vulnerable.
 
This will be supported by three interlinked UN-wide institutional reforms. First, building a stronger accountability architecture for achieving results. Second, better stewardship of existing resources in a manner that does not confuse austerity with reform. And third, fully realigning the UN’s financial base with its mandates.
 
As Secretary-General, I will build a financing approach that follows a simple chain: accountability, trust, resources, and effective delivery to rebuild and renew credibility. The deeper objective is to restore confidence and a new compact between Member States, the UN Secretariat, and the people we serve: a vibrant United Nations that demonstrates tangible results every day in defined areas of proven expertise, learns to step back when it lacks a comparative advantage, and justifies its hard-earned value through both principles and performance. When accountability and effective performance are credibly seen, the renewal of trust can follow. And when trust is rebuilt, the political and financial support required for effective multilateral action becomes possible too.