New Delhi: An Indian-origin employee at the United Nations has announced her candidacy for the election to appoint the global organisation’s next secretary-general. The post is currently held by Antonio Guterres, who is vying for a second five-year term after his current stint ends in December.
Arora Akanksha, 34, threw her hat in the ring by launching her campaign UNOW with the hashtag #AroraforSG on Twitter, and other social media platforms including TikTok. Candidates for the election are generally nominated by UN member states, but Akanksha is leading an independent campaign.
An audit coordinator for the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Akanksha said in a campaign video posted online that the body hasn’t kept its promises to the world, adding that it needs better leadership.
“I will officially apply for special leave next week,” she told ThePrint Saturday. “In the past, when Secretary Generals campaign for their second term, they don’t step down, it should technically apply to other staff members as well,” she said.
Akanksha was part of Guterres’s financial reforms team and has described her candidacy as a “David and Goliath story”. “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,” she said in a campaign message.
The secretary-general heads the secretariat as the chief administrative officer of the UN. No woman has ever held the position in its 75-year history.
Last month, Guterres, whose term as the ninth secretary-general ends on 31 December this year, announced he would be running again for the position.
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Who is Arora Akanksha
Akanksha has an Overseas Citizenship of India, a form of permanent residency for foreign nationals who have ever held Indian citizenship that allows them to live and work in India indefinitely. She holds a Canadian passport, according to a report by PassBlue, an independent non-profit news website that covers developments concerning the UN.
She was born in India, where her family relocated from Pakistan after the Partition. Her parents are physicians. The family moved to Saudi Arabia when she was six years old, before settling in Canada. According to her LinkedIn profile, Akanksha completed a Bachelor’s in Administrative Studies from York University in 2009, after which she worked as an Associate at Ernst & Young and later taught a graduate-level course on Advanced Auditing at the University of Toronto.
She spent the next four years working at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), followed by a stint at the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA Canada). In December 2016, she joined the UN. She obtained a Master’s in Public Administration from Columbia University in New York from 2018-19.
She has been living in New York for the last four years and has worked in Africa for UN missions.
As an audit coordinator for UNDP, Akanksha is involved in updating financial regulations and rules of the UN, revising finance policies and procedures etc.
‘UN has not fulfilled its promise to the world’
Akanksha has criticised the reforms proposed by Guterres as no different from the previous ones and called them “an unnecessary expansion of the bureaucracy”. The UN “doesn’t need more money” but better leadership, she states on her UNOW website.
“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 in her campaign video posted on YouTube Tuesday.
She said three aspects of UN leadership need urgent reform – addressing the growing refugee crisis, technology and education and ensuring all countries have access to the internet.
“With regard to technology, India has moved mountains. They have digitised a huge part of their country,” she told ThePrint.
Addressing the growing refugee crisis, taking humanitarian crises to completion and ensuring all countries have access to the internet can make the UN “relevant in the 21st century”, she added.
In a press release issued Tuesday, she said experiencing a road accident in February 2017, shortly after she began working at the UN, was a wake-up call.
“Everyone working at the UN knows it’s not living up to its potential but no one has been ready to challenge that,” she said. “The employees and foot soldiers like me, as well as the decision-making bodies are doing the best we can. There is a huge level of respect and diversity. But it’s the lack of pragmatic leadership that is holding the UN back from implementing its decisions to the fullest”.
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The selection process
Akanksha has not received backing from any state for her candidacy, as has been the norm. To bolster support for her candidacy, the UN staffer has been urging people to access the link to her UNOW platform and cast their “vote”, after which an email is seemingly sent to the UN representative of the voter’s country.
“Traditions can be revisited and its not a requirement to have state-backing to be a candidate,” Akanksha said.
Thank you for your support! Please go on https://t.co/Gb2t2vrh3L and vote for a #UNThatWorks. We the people are more powerful than any system. pic.twitter.com/nVzS6hYHuo
— Arora Akanksha (@arora4people) February 12, 2021
According to Article 97 of the UN Charter, the secretary-general is appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The appointment is subject to the veto of any of the five permanent members of the council — the UK, China, France, Russia and the US.
Traditionally, candidates are officially presented to the president of the General Assembly by a member state. Guterres himself was put forth by the Permanent Representative of Portugal in 2016. There was no formal procedure for selection prior to 2016 and there have seldom been any self-nominations, states the aforementioned PassBlue report.
Earlier this week, the spokesperson for the UN General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir said that no other formal nomination other than Guterres’ had been received.
According to a joint letter from the presidents of the General Assembly and Security Council, issued on 5 February, “candidates should possess proven leadership and managerial abilities, extensive experience in international relations, and strong diplomatic, communication and multilingual skills”. The letter also states that informal dialogues with candidates in the General Assembly will take place before the Council begins its selection by May or June 2021.
Previous UN secretary-generals have hailed from South Korea, Ghana, Egypt, Peru, Austria, Myanmar, Sweden and Norway.
The last time an Indian was in the running for the position was when Shashi Tharoor contested in 2006. Tharoor lost to Ban Ki-moon, and subsequently joined the Congress in 2009, eventually becoming a Member of Parliament.
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She is not an Indian and way different case than Tharoor.
False hopes about this non Indian Canadian.