Olara Otunnu on His Vision for the United Nations | UN Secretary-General Candidate 2026

Human rights is in my DNA. I cut my political teeth in Uganda. Human rights should not be politicised. As Secretary-General, I stand on the principles of the Charter. I would invoke those principles, I would promote human rights, but do so in a manner which is completely non-selective. Reforming, reorganizing, restructuring the UN is no longer an optional choice. This is an imperative. The UN is at some risk unless we address in a very systematic and serious way the issue of reform. This means, of course, that we must deepen and broaden the process which I started under UN 80. We must see the mandates of the various organizations that fall under the UN family. Are they overlapping? Are they rationalized? Should they be merged? And all this will require very systematic examination and assessment. So what we must do differently this time is to have the resolve at the level of both the Secretary General and member states to carry through whatever reform measures we are able to agree upon and that all this we must do in order to make the UN more useful to the people of the world, more efficient and more impactful. And that leadership is what I would provide for consideration by member states.