The First 1,000 Days: An Agenda for the (Next) UN Secretary-General

How the Secretary-General can ‘govern the ungovernable’

From day one, the next Secretary-General will be working against the clock. Photo: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

As candidates vie for “the most impossible job in the world,” a new report by Cepei and the German Institute of Development and Sustainability lays out a road map for how the UN’s 10th leader can catalyze systemic reform. Framed as an open letter to the next Secretary-General, it provides tactical innovations and solutions for the first 1,000 days.

Drawing on surveys, interviews, and an analysis of funding flows and voting patterns, the report looks past organizational charts to understand where power resides — and what the next UN chief can and cannot do.

I sat down with Philipp Schönrock, Executive Director of Cepei, to dive into the report’s recommendations.

Your report outlines several priorities for the next Secretary-General’s first 1,000 days. Can you tell us about your recommendations?

We see a once-in-a-generation opportunity, because for the first time in decades, fundamental governance questions are on the negotiating table. We have multiple reform processes converging, and there is political will in some quarters for transformation. But we also have seen that reform can become synonymous with austerity and cuts, which would miss the opportunity to address the real crises of power and legitimacy within the system.

That is why we are proposing a 1,000-day framework in which the next Administration takes a sequencing strategy, building political capital and deploying it thoughtfully over time.

The first priority — the first 100 days — is to establish credibility through transparency. It is extremely important that the next Secretary-General understands the mandate and the power they have, makes credible decisions, and develops a strong narrative for both the inside — meaning the UN system at large — and the outside, meaning Member States.

The second recommendation is to build coalitions. This means fostering a “friends of UN reform” dialogue, bringing together and bridging Member States beyond the traditional negotiating blocs.

The third recommendation is to institutionalize changes — completing a mandate review pilot and launching the first UN Development Charter [a proposed compact linking agency coordination to donor funding], which would give stakeholders within the system authority to clarify and test reforms in pilot countries. The main message here is to experiment, take risks, and test what can work and what cannot. That is a liberty the next Secretary-General should embrace in order to adjust a system that is very difficult and very slow to change.

The fourth recommendation, in year three, is to demonstrate results. This means enabling Member States to begin proposing the next wave of reforms based on the framework that has been established.

To summarize the overarching vision: The Secretary-General should make power visible, pursue more inclusive reform, and take a top-down approach where needed.

You describe the UN development system as “ungovernable by design.” What makes it ungovernable?

Underlying all of this is what we call a triple disconnect that the next Secretary-General will inherit: Authority without resources, because over 80% of funding is earmarked with no governance control or accountability. Resources without oversight, as just 10 donors provide nearly 70% of funding. And States without a voice, because the countries that most need technical cooperation and policy advice have the least power over priorities.

The bottom line here is that formal governance structures do not match power dynamics. Boards do not actually control the direction of institutions — they are quite passive — and this is where I see an imbalance of power within the UN system itself. And the Secretary-General does not have direct oversight over the agencies, funds, and programs that execute on the ground. It is a mismatch by design. It makes reform difficult and makes it hard to have a holistic view of development within the UN system.

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People have been talking about UN reform for years. What hope do you have that now is the time for change?

There is an expression that every crisis holds an opportunity, and this is an existential crisis, which is why I believe people will take it seriously. I do not think we will see fundamental changes immediately, but none of the major players — including the P5 [the five permanent members of the Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States] — want to leave the UN. Smaller Member States will fight dearly for the UN because it is the only space at a global level where they can be heard, can negotiate, and can have a voice, and sometimes they have influence over outcomes. We have reform agendas on the table and people actively working on them. Even though a growing number of countries would like to see a weakened UN, they don’t want to abolish it because they know that the UN helps bring the world together in one place.

The UN is imperfect, but it remains the best institutional setup we have.
This is where I still see hope.

The report claims that power increasingly operates outside formal governance structures. Why have informal mechanisms become dominant?

Funding is the primary driver of parallel systems and of Member States pursuing bilateral agendas rather than what was negotiated multilaterally.

Boards approve strategic plans but control only a small fraction of spending. Donors shape priorities bilaterally through earmarking, and multilateral entities have effectively become executors of bilateral agendas. What is even more worrying is that transaction costs have multiplied. Currently, more than 60% of UN grants are below $1 million. Anyone who has worked with the UN knows it is not an inexpensive institution to work with because it has a very large bureaucracy. Sometimes, transaction costs can exceed the benefit delivered on the ground.

Core funding has not grown; in fact, it has actually declined. The goal was that Member States would commit at least 30% [of their contributions] to core funding by 2023. That did not happen. COVID-19 and other crises served as cover, but for whatever reason the target was not met. Now, the goal is for that to happen by 2027.

In the report, you discuss four forms of power — symbolic, managerial, network, and Charter — and note that network and Charter power are underutilized at the UN. Can you give concrete examples of how a Secretary-General could use those forms of power more effectively?

There has long been a debate about whether we need a Secretary or a General — or these days, a CEO — and I think the answer is that we need all of the above.

The Secretary-General has a limited mandate but has significant power to work the aisles of the UN and conduct quiet diplomacy. This leader has the power to set agendas, as we saw with the Sustainable Development Goals, and will probably do it with the post-2030 agenda [the framework that will replace the SDGs], migration, AI, and other issues. And this person will have the power to mediate and facilitate dialogue among Member States, nudging them toward convergence.

We have seen very successful Secretaries-General who may not have been the most visible on television, but they do their work quietly, through direct engagement with Member States and careful stewardship of the system itself. It requires a lot of diplomatic skill. Many incoming Secretaries-General have come from ministerial or even prime ministerial backgrounds. They are accustomed to giving orders that are executed. In the UN, an order is debated, questioned, filtered through layers of power, and what you write in the morning rarely looks the same by afternoon. So you really need to know how to navigate the system in order to influence it.

Do you think the next Secretary-General will have the political space to deliver on the recommendations in the report?

The next Secretary-General will have to earn it. It’s about how much you can make out of the system. This is why we believe the next Secretary-General must be someone who understands the system and knows how to navigate it. The frustrations will come early because the desire to reform faces a world of bureaucracy, competing interests, and States that like the status quo because it works just fine for them.

From day one, what matters is narrative, clear messaging, and keeping up the morale within the system itself.

If the next Secretary-General thinks they can simply choose
their battles from a position of strength, that will not happen.

They will be on the defensive immediately and will need to find ways to gear up to be on the offensive as much as possible.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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