Mr Tharoor is currently the under secretary-general for communications and public information in the UN.

He has worked in the world body for nearly three decades since completing his PhD at Tufts University in the US.

“I have worked in the UN for 28 years… So I think I would bring a lot of experience and commitment to the task,” Mr Tharoor told the BBC when asked why he wanted the job.

“I believe passionately in the UN and see it as a force that can make a real difference in the world.”

UN reform

Mr Tharoor, an Indian national, has written several novels, including a political satire, The Great Indian Novel.

The race for the UN secretary-general’s post has begun in earnest since the incumbent, Kofi Annan, ends his second and final term in December.

Commentators say that Asia is due to have a UN secretary-general as both Mr Annan and his predecessor, Boutros Boutros Ghali, were from Africa.

There are three other Asian candidates are in the running – Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai and the South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.

However observers in India say Mr Tharoor’s long association with the UN works to his advantage.

But more crucial for him would be the backing of the five members of the Security Council: the US, Britain, Russia, France, and China.

Even if he manages the support of the general assembly, a single veto by any permanent member would damage his chances.

The BBC’s Crispin Thorold at the UN says Mr Tharoor’s experience may count against him.

He says in recent weeks there has been a sense that the US and some others want an outsider to come into an organisation that many believe needs radical reform.

Name of Source: BBC News

The details of the “blind” straw poll reveal very little about how much support each of the current candidates really have. Instead, it was merely a way for candidates to learn which of the 15 Security Council members “encourage” them to go on, “discourage” them, or have “no opinion.”

While two candidates received more support than the other two, confidence in the currently announced candidates is low and speculation is high that others will be nominated over the next few months. It is unlikely that this week’s straw poll will determine how the race will shape up. The most significant result may be for a candidate or two to withdraw quietly after being discouraged by the Security Council.

However, the straw poll is an opportunity for Security Council members to send a message about what they would like to see from the next Secretary-General. The United States should use this process to state clearly that candidates for Secretary-General must be committed to fundamental and far-reaching UN reform to make the organization more transparent, accountable, and effective.

The Next Secretary-General?

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and this is perhaps more true for the United Nations than elsewhere. The most overt evidence of political horse-trading involves the regional influence over the selection of the Secretary-General.

In tacit acknowledgement of Asia’s claim to the next Secretary-General, all four of the official candidates are Asian. Asia’s claim is based on an informal and loosely followed tradition of rotating the Secretary-General position among different regions.

Thus far, candidates from countries outside of the Asian regional group have been excluded from consideration, despite the fact that Eastern Europe is the only regional group that has never had a Secretary-General.

Politics also likely dominated, if less publicly, consideration of the four official candidates by the Security Council this week. All have been jetting around the world on public relations tours to secure high-level official endorsements, and all have personal strengths and weaknesses that will factor into the support they garner. Just as important, however, are international political dynamics and the concerns of the members of the Security Council. All four of the official candidates have widely reported negatives that may undermine support in the Security Council:

India: Shashi Tharoor, UN Undersecretary-General for Communications. While Tharoor has made the promotion of human rights and non-governmental organization (NGOs) participation in the UN the centerpieces of his campaign, he has been endorsed by Belarus—one of the world’s worst human rights abusers and a country that often intimidates its own NGOs.

Tharoor argues that his years of experience within the UN will greatly aid him as Secretary-General. Others argue that an insider would be poorly positioned to reform the UN and point to numerous scandals during the tenure of long-time UN bureaucrat and current Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Tharoor has not won the endorsement of any of the major world leaders lobbied by his government at the recent G-8 ministerial.
South Korea: Ban Ki-Moon, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Ban Ki-Moon has the support of at least two consistent human rights abusers—Uzbekistan and Egypt—which raises questions about his commitment to making the UN more effective in advancing basic human rights.[5] While his familiarity with North Korea may be an asset, that the South Korean government has been reluctant to confront North Korea on human rights or its belligerence and nuclear ambitions should concern the U.S. because the situation on the peninsula will likely occupy the UN for the foreseeable future. Ban has said little about UN reform, and there are questions about his commitment to it. The current government in South Korea campaigned in 2004 with strong anti-United States rhetoric. Thus support from the U.S. is in question even though President Bush said the U.S. is now “looking in the Far East” for the next Secretary-General.

Sri Lanka: Jayantha Dhanapala. Jayantha Dhanapala failed to win India’s support, which is considered important for a South Asian candidate. He has been strongly criticized by Russia and was reportedly a thorn in America’s side as chair of a global review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As UN Undersecretary-General for Disarmament from 1998 to 2003, Dhanapala reestablished and led the UN’s disarmament program. Under his watch, India and Pakistan declared themselves to be nuclear states, and Iran and North Korea violated their nuclear arms agreements.

Thailand: Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai. Surakiart Sathirathai was the early frontrunner, based on his endorsement by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). He reportedly also has Chinese support. However, his prospects seem to be in steady decline as his government battles political troubles in Thailand. He has reacted to detractors by filing lawsuits, and many human rights groups oppose him.

News reports indicate that, while Ban Ki-Moon and Shashi Tharoor led the UN Security Council’s first straw poll to become the next Secretary-General, there is a “a general sense that none of the candidates were likely to succeed.”

If the official candidates founder, other potential candidates include Afghanistan’s former finance minister Ashraf Ghani; Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein of Jordan; President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia; former deputy prime minister and finance minister of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim; current high commissioner of Pakistan to the United Kingdom and a former ambassador to the United States Maleeha Lodhi; former President of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski; Singapore’s former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong; and Administrator of the UN Development Programme Kemal Dervis of Turkey.

U.S. Priorities for the Next Secretary-General

How the U.S. will vote on the official candidates is unclear. Although President Bush’s statements on July 10 indicate that the U.S. has acknowledged demands that the next Secretary-General be from Asia, it also seems clear that the U.S. will oppose candidates whom it considers unsuitable.

Thus far, the U.S. appears unenthused about any of the four declared candidates, which may in part reflect its uncertainty about the commitment of the individual candidates to fundamental UN reform. Based on comments by U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, UN reform is a priority for the U.S. and will be a key factor in its decision whether to support or oppose a particular candidate.

The organization has major responsibilities. The UN employs over 9,000 people of all nationalities and spends $7 billion per year in the its regular and peacekeeping budgets—more than the 2004 gross domestic product of 72 UN member states.

It runs 18 peacekeeping missions involving some 90,000 personnel. Some of these missions, including the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) established in Jerusalem in 1948 and the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) established in 1949, date back decades and are older than two-thirds of UN member states.

Unfortunately, the UN has often failed in these responsibilities, and recent, well-publicized scandals illustrate the many problems that continue to plague the world body. For instance, investigations found some 200 instances of alleged procurement mismanagement and fraud in peacekeeping operations. Additionally, bribes and kickbacks to the tune of $2 billion under the Iraqi Oil-for-Food program involved over 2,000 companies in nearly 70 countries.

The United Nations often makes decisions based more on political concerns than on the overall effectiveness of the organization.

Seemingly benign changes in personnel and mandates are perceived as turf wars, slights, or assaults on obscure fiefdoms. These concerns led the G-77 to delay and block Secretary-General Annan’s reform effort by requesting a series of reports from the Secretary-General on his proposals.

Compounding the problem, the G-77 led an effort to approve a UN budget beyond the $950 million cap despite making little progress on UN reform this past June, thus removing a major incentive for reform. While the U.S. did not vote against the resolution, it disassociated itself from the consensus position.

The United States should make UN reform a paramount consideration for the next Secretary-General. President Bush missed an important opportunity recently when he left the drive for reform out of the list of qualities he seeks in the next Secretary-General. The next Secretary-General should, as the President pointed out, be someone who “wants to spread liberty and enhance the peace, do difficult things like confront tyranny, worry about the human condition, [and] blow the whistle on human rights violations,” but it is also critical that he or she is committed to battling fraud, improving UN oversight, and removing the bureaucratic detritus and defects that limit the UN’s effectiveness.

The official candidates have presented their views on reform to the Security Council. Yet UN reform for these candidates may be inconsistent with what the U.S. envisions. To varying degrees, they have engaged in political maneuvering designed to attract support from a broad swath of the General Assembly and avoid controversial aspects of reform.

The failure of these candidates to lay out explicitly a reform agenda designed to improve UN effectiveness, oversight, and accountability and to forthrightly announce their intention to implement those reforms if they become Secretary-General should concern the U.S. Whoever takes over from Kofi Annan must be more than the chief cheerleader for the UN, an opportunistic diplomat, or a skillful orator. As John Bolton has noted,

The UN Charter describes the secretary-general as the UN’s “chief administrative officer.” He is not the president of the world. He is not a diplomat for all seasons.… He is the chief administrative officer. Nothing less than that, to be sure, but, with even greater certainty, nothing more.

As much as individuals, groups, and governments are eager to see the next Secretary-General champion various causes, the first priority and qualification for the next Secretary-General—and the only responsibility specifically assigned to the office in the UN Charter—is to be an effective chief administrative officer.

Given the evident flaws of the organization, the first priority of a chief administrative officer must be to fight for fundamental reform of the organization.

Without reform to improve effectiveness and accountability, every UN activity—regardless of its merits or the capabilities of the next Secretary-General—will suffer. Unfortunately, the straw poll process will say little about how much emphasis the Council places on a candidate’s ability to carry out substantive UN reform.

It won’t indicate what substantive expertise the Security Council members seek in the person who will inherit from Kofi Annan a massive and very troubled organization. The U.S. should request that the candidates publicly identify a reform agenda that they will pursue and should announce that a lack of commitment to reform will draw U.S. opposition. In addition, Washington should make it clear that failure to follow through on promises made by the eventual winner will influence the U.S. decision to support or oppose reelection five years hence.

Name of Source: Seoul Times

Listening to the post-Lebanon-war debate in Israel leaves me wanting to say just one thing to Israelis: Get a grip on.

Israel is behaving like it lost the Lebanon war and now needs to tear itself apart, limb by limb, with investigations and new elections. Clearly the Israeli Army’s logistics broke down, and clearly it was ill-prepared for a guerrilla war against Hezbollah. And clearly it is a sign of the health of Israel’s democracy that Israelis feel free to castigate their leadership.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did a better job, under the circumstances, than he is being credited with, and, more important, the situation evolving in south Lebanon now has the potential to offer a whole new model for peacemaking.

Regarding Mr. Olmert, this war was not easy to manage, because it was about everything and nothing. There was absolutely no reason for the Hezbollah attack on July 12 across the U.N.-recognized Israel-Lebanon border, in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two abducted. In that sense, the war was about nothing.

But precisely because it was about nothing, it was also about everything. If Hezbollah could just attack Israel — unprovoked — claiming among its goals the liberation of Jerusalem, and using missiles provided by an Iranian regime that says Israel should be wiped off the map, then it was a war about everything. And Israel had to respond resolutely.

So, gauging the right response was intrinsically hard. In the end, Mr. Olmert bombarded Hezbollah’s infrastructure, and, tragically but inevitably, the homes of Hezbollah’s Shiite followers, among whom Hezbollah fighters were embedded.

The Israeli response was brutal, but it did send a deterrent message, which Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, received. As he put it in an interview on Lebanon’s NTV, “If I had known on July 11 that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not.”

Even he doesn’t think he won.

Give Nasrallah credit for honesty. What Arab leader has ever been so self-critical? Nasrallah was reacting to those Lebanese voices that said: Thanks for passing out $12,000 to families who lost homes in the fighting, but had you spent that money on schools and jobs, rather than a stupid war, we’d all be better off.

The fact that Condi Rice and the French foreign minister, working with the U.N., were able to secure an international peacekeeping force in south Lebanon is a potentially key achievement on two fronts. If the force works — still a big if — Hezbollah will not be able to directly attack Israel without getting embroiled in a conflict with 15,000 French, Italian, Indian and possibly Turkish peacekeepers. That is a big new strategic problem for Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. They can’t hit Israel now without harming their ties with the E.U.

More important, what have we learned in recent years? One, Israel’s occupations of the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon are unsustainable. And two, Lebanon and the Palestinians don’t have their act together enough yet to control border areas when Israel leaves — either by agreement (Oslo) or by just unilaterally withdrawing and throwing the keys over the fence. As a result, the peace process has not been ”land for peace,” but ”land for war.”

When Israel pulls out of Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank and wants quiet, it needs a reliable structure of authority on the other side, which, right now, neither Lebanon nor the Palestinians alone can provide.

The U.N./European force evolving in Lebanon may offer a new model. It’s not “land for peace,”‘ or “land for war,” but what I’d call “land for NATO.” Israel withdraws and the border is secured by a force that is U.N. on the outside but NATO on the inside.

“The fact that it has a heavy European/NATO component makes it credible to Israel, and the fact that it has a U.N. umbrella makes it acceptable to the Arab world,” said the U.N. under secretary Shashi Tharoor, the dynamic Indian diplomat who is a finalist to succeed Kofi Annan as secretary general and who deserves U.S. endorsement.

The Europeans have to understand “that something very big is at stake in this force,” said the Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi. They have to prove that demilitarization in south Lebanon can give Israel security and Lebanon both sovereignty and an effective international partner to maintain order. If that happens, he added, ”it could revive the chances for an eventual Palestinian-Israeli deal on the West Bank and Gaza.”

Yes, it’s a long shot, but maybe something good can actually come out of this good-for-nothing Lebanon war.

In a straw poll held recently among the 15 Security Council members, the result produced two leading candidates, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon and Shashi Tharoor, the present U.N. under-secretary, from India.

In an informal poll, council members checked one of three boxes for each candidate: “encourage,” “discourage,” and “no opinion.” The outcome was that no candidate got 15 “encourage” votes.

Ban came out on top, with 12 “encourage,” one “discourage,” and two “no opinion.”

Tharoor came in a close second with ten “encourage,” two “discourage,” and three “no opinion.”

Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, who was first to jump into the fray last year, fared poorly, with seven “encourage,” three against and five “no opinion.”

The worst performer was former U.N. Disarmament Chief Jayantha Dhanapath, who got only five “encourage,” six “discourage,” and four “no opinion.”

Other possible candidates include Kemal Dervis, the Turkish chief of the U.N. Development Program, Jordan’s Prince Zeid Al Hussein, and Goh Chok Tong, former prime minister of Singapore.

After the poll, Tharoor, in an e-mail response, expressed satisfaction with the outcome. He said:

“Considering I entered the race just a month ago and am the only candidate who hasn’t visited all 15 capitals, I’m gratified to have received such support.”

Concerning Ban, Tharoor said:

“I’ve the highest personal regard for Mr. Ban, but I believe I offer a genuine alternative — a candidate from the South who can articulate a positive vision for a U.N. of the 21st century.”

Shashi Tharoor hails from the state of Kerala. Besides running the affairs of the United Nations as its under-secretary, he is also a writer of repute. He has several books to his credit and made a name for himself authoring the non-fiction work The Great Indian Novel.

In 1998, he won the Excelsior Award for Literature from the Association of Indians in America. He was named Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

If elected, Tharoor has promised to focus on education for girls, because, according to him:

“As the saying goes, when you educate a boy, you educate a person. But when you educate a girl, you educate a whole family.”

If Tharoor could make it to the coveted post of U.N. secretary-general, it would be a refreshing change to have a wordsmith who can use his creative skill to tackle the problems of this complex world.

Speaking on ‘The Future of the United Nations’ at the Asia Society in New York on Friday, Tharoor, who is running for the post of Secretary General, made a historical assessment of the world body, its failures and achievements, especially in terms of preventing war and regional conflicts and what needs to be done to make the organisation more efficient and effective.

“The United Nations has never been and will never be a perfect body. It has acted unwisely at times and has failed to act at another times,” he said.

“Sitting in this room all of us can find examples of the United Nations’ failures and setbacks. But the United Nations at its best and worst is a mirror of our world. It reflects our divisions and disagreements as well as our hopes and convictions,” Tharoor said.

Tharoor, who joined the world body 28 years ago, said the UN remains at the heart of the challenges of world disorder and it must respond effectively to the challenges.

Over the years, he said, more than 170 UN-assisted peace settlements have ended regional conflicts and over 300 international treaties have been negotiated creating international framework that reduces prospects of conflicts among sovereign states.

“The UN remains second to none in its unquestioned experience, leadership and authority in coordinating humanitarian action. When the UN succeeds, the whole world wins and these are the achievements we can build on,” he said.

Tharoor acknowledged that in recent years the world body has been criticised for being ineffective and many dubbed it as irrelevant. “The division over the Iraq war dramatically affected the UN’s standing. The world body went down in the United States because it did not support the US administration on the war and it also went down in many countries because the United Nations was unable to prevent the war,” Tharoor said.

“So, some powerful voices began to speak about UN’s irrelevance. This is ironic because as I said earlier the UN reflects the reality of the world and our willingness to cooperate with each other.”

He said when the joined the organisation in 1978, it would have inconceivable that the United Nations would one day run elections in sovereign states, that it would conduct inspections for weapons of mass destructions and impose comprehensive sanction on a medium-sized country’s entire import-export trade or even send human rights monitors to see how a monarch was treating his own subjects.

‘If I had suggested any of these to my seniors at the world body, they would have said, ‘young man, you simply do not understand what the United Nations is all about,’” Tharoor said.

“Yet, the United Nations has done everyone of these things in the past three decades and more. The world body has evolved in response to changing times and remains a highly adaptable institution,” Tharoor said.

Tharoor, who is among the frontrunners for the secretary General’s election, acknowledged the need for reform of the world body, but cautioned the audience that the need does not arise because of the failures of the world body.

“We need reform, not because the institution has failed, but because it has succeeded enough to be worth investing in future,” he said.

Tharoor gave a laundry list of the areas where he would like to work to improve the efficacy and efficiency of the UN, including improved peacekeeping operations and fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals.

“I would also ensure that the staff of highest competence and integrity from both sexes and from every geographic region are appointed to responsible position and then to remove cronyism and nepotism, of which we have been sometimes, not unfairly, been accused of,” he said.

Quoting from Mahatma Gandhi that ‘you must be the change you wish to see in the world,’ Tharoor said although Gandhi referred to individuals, it applies to organisations like the UN as well.

“If the UN wishes to change the world, we better change too,’ he said.

“My United Nations of the future must be firmly anchored in its own experience even as it sails onward,” Tharoor said, “The UN of the future must never forget that it is both a result and a source of hopes for a better world, hopes that human beings share all over the world.”

Excellencies, Friends,

I am most grateful for this invitation to address your regional group. I welcome the opportunity to discuss vital issues concerning the future of the United Nations, and that is what I hope to address, as we work together to chart a course for our organization into the 21 st century.

The United Nations started out as a vision in the minds of leaders who were determined to make the second half of the twentieth century different from the much-troubled first. They drew up rules to govern international behaviour, and founded institutions in which different nations could cooperate for the common good.

Their idea — now called “global governance” – was to create an international architecture that could foster international cooperation, elaborate consensual global norms and establish predictable, universally applicable rules, to the benefit of all – as an alternative to the military alliances and balance of power politics that wreaked such havoc in the preceding five decades.

The keystone of the arch, so to speak, was the United Nations itself. The UN was seen by those world leaders as the only possible answer to the disastrous experiences of the first half of the century – fifty years in which the world had suffered two world wars, countless civil wars, brutal dictatorships, mass expulsions of populations, and the horrors of the Holocaust and Hiroshima.

The new United Nations would stand for a world in which people of different nations and cultures would look on each other, not as subjects of fear and suspicion, but as potential partners, able to exchange goods and ideas to their mutual benefit. A place where small states and big would be able to work as sovereign equals, pursuing common objectives in a universal forum.

And it would provide a means to address what we sometimes like to call ‘problems without passports’ – problems that cross all frontiers uninvited (climate change, drug trafficking, terrorism, epidemics, refugee movements and so on) – and whose solutions also can have no passports because no one country or group of countries, however rich or powerful, can tackle them alone.

It is the resolution of these problems that remains at the very core of the UN’s activities.

Indeed, today I think it is fair to say that even those countries that once felt insulated from external dangers — by wealth or strength or distance — now realize that the safety of people everywhere depends not only on local security forces, but also on guarding against terrorism; warding off the global spread of pollution, of diseases, of illegal drugs and of weapons of mass destruction; and on promoting human rights, democracy and development. Jobs anywhere depend not only on local firms and factories, but on faraway markets for the goods they buy and produce, on licenses and access from foreign governments, on an international environment that allows the free movement of goods and persons, and on international institutions that ensure stability – in short, on the international system constructed in 1945.

And so, in 2006, I would argue that the need for a universal means for global governance, a mechanism for international cooperation — indeed, let us call it by its name, for a United Nations — is stronger than ever.

Which leads me to the next question. What kind of United Nations should we build for the future? Part of the answer to that question must lie in the past.

Of course, the UN has never been, and will never be, a perfect body. It has acted unwisely at times, and failed to act at others. We can each find examples of the UN’s failures and setbacks.

But the United Nations, at its best and its worst, is a mirror of the world: it reflects not just our divisions and disagreements but also our hopes and convictions. As our great second Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, put it, the United Nations was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.

And that it has. We must not forget that the UN has achieved an enormous amount in its 60 years. Most important of all, it prevented the Cold War from turning hot – first, by providing a roof under which the two superpower adversaries could meet and engage, and second, by mounting peacekeeping operations that ensured that local and regional conflicts were contained and did not ignite a superpower clash that could have sparked off a global conflagration.

Today, while the Security Council grapples with Lebanon, the Palestinian situation, Iran and North Korea , the UN remains at the heart of the challenges of world disorder and must respond effectively to them. Over the years, more than 170 UN-assisted peace settlements have ended regional conflicts. Over 300 international treaties have been negotiated at the UN, setting an international framework that reduces the prospect for conflict among sovereign States. The UN has built global norms that are universally accepted in areas as diverse as decolonization and disarmament, development and democratization.

And the UN remains second to none in its unquestioned experience, leadership and authority in co-ordinating humanitarian action, from tsunamis to human waves of refugees. When the blue flag flies over a disaster zone, all know that humanity is taking responsibility — not any one Government — and that when the UN succeeds, the whole world wins. Our newly-established revolving fund for emergency response to humanitarian disasters reflects and strengthens our ability to make a difference. And these are achievements we can build on.

But since the best crystal ball is often the rear view mirror, I hope you will allow me a personal look into the past as well. For the UN has not just changed enormously in those first 60 years; it has been transformed in the career span of one UN official standing before you. If I had even suggested to my seniors when I joined the Organization 28 years ago that the UN would one day observe and even run elections in sovereign states, conduct intrusive inspections for weapons of mass destruction, impose comprehensive sanctions on the entire import-export trade of a Member State, create a counter-terrorism committee to monitor national actions against terrorists, or set up international criminal tribunals and coerce governments into handing over their citizens to be tried by foreigners under international law, I am sure they would have told me that I simply did not understand what the United Nations was all about.

And yet the UN has done every one of those things during the last two decades, and more. The United Nations, in short, has been a highly adaptable institution that has evolved in response to changing times.

Since it has worked in practice, my UN of the future must be firmly anchored in its own experience, even as it sails onward. But though our walls are lined with Nobel Prize certificates, we must not rest on our laurels. We need reform, not because the UN has failed, but because it has succeeded enough to be worth investing in.

The need for reform has become clear in recent years, and we live in a time when divisions in the UN have led to genuine worries that the old East-West divide is being replaced by a new and equally serious North-South divide. Many diplomats and academic observers are speaking increasingly of a crisis of confidence in the international system. But we speak a lot of languages at the UN. Indeed, I am the Secretariat’s Co-odinator for Multilingualism. And my Chinese friends tell me that in their language, the Chinese character for “crisis” is made up of two other characters – the character for “danger” and the character for “opportunity”. Today, we must see the danger and seize the opportunity.

A series of far reaching proposals were made by the Secretary-General, and at the World Summit last year, some 170 world leaders – the largest ever gathering of heads of State and government in human history – agreed on a plan to reshape the international architecture for the twenty-first century. We have to build on that level of political agreement and take our organization forward in the common interest. And that is where the new Secretary-General comes in.

Mr Chairman,

Fifty-three years ago the first outgoing Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, described the post he was handing over to Dag Hammarskjold as “the most impossible job in the world”. A function described in the Charter as the Chief Administrative Officer of the Organization, yet one with major unspecified political responsibilities and communications challenges. Today the Secretary-General commands great diplomatic legitimacy, and even greater media visibility, but less political power than the language of the UN Charter suggests. To be effective, he must be skilled at managing staff and budgets, gifted at public diplomacy (and its behind-the-scenes variant), and able to engage the loyalties of a wide array of external actors, including non-governmental organizations, business groups, and journalists. And he must work well, above all, with Governments: He must convince the nations of the poor and conflict-ridden South that their interests are uppermost in his mind while ensuring that he can work effectively with the wealthy and powerful North. He must recognize the power and the prerogatives of the Security Council, especially its five permanent members, while staying attentive to the priorities and passions of the General Assembly. He must promote dialogue across the divides – geographic, political, ideological – and work with Member States to search for common solutions. And he must present member states with politically achievable proposals and implement his mandates within the means they provide him.

Above all, the Secretary-Generall needs a vision of the higher purpose of his office and an awareness of its potential and limitations. In other words, to be successful, he must conceive and project a vision of the UN as it should be, while administering and defending the organization as it is. Truly an impossible job. But understanding what it takes is the first step to doing it well.

I come to it, Your Excellencies, with 28 years of service to the United Nations in a wide variety of areas – refugees and humanitarian work, peacekeeping, service in the Secretary-General’s office and now the management of a large department that I was appointed to reform. In the process I have seen, from the inside and the ground up, most of the major types of challenges with which a Secretary-General can expect to be faced. I believe I can handle them well. I offer both continuity and change: continuity with the best traditions of the United Nations, change because change is a constant in our Organization. I believe an effective United Nations is essential as the indispensable global institution for our globalizing world. And a vital task of the next Secretary-General will be to ensure that the institution is ready for the challenges of the 21 st century, building on the changes Kofi Annan has already introduced but prepared to deal with the unpredictable challenges of tomorrow.

Let us have no illusions about the scale of those challenges. The divisions over the Iraq war dramatically affected the UN’s standing – our image went down in the US because the UN did not support the Administration on the war, and it went down in many other countries because the UN was unable to prevent the war. We disappointed both sets of expectations, and some famous and rather powerful voices began to speak of the UN’s irrelevance. This is ironic, because the United Nations reflects, as I pointed out earlier, the realities of the world, and our willingness to co-operate with each other.

As Secretary-General, however, I would focus on those areas which are within my direct competence. None is more important than the reinforcement of the operational capacity of the UN — to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals, mount effective peace-keeping operations, and respond urgently to crises. As the Chief Administrative Officer of the Organization, I would ensure the strengthening of the international civil service, insisting that staff of both sexes, of the highest competence and integrity, are appointed to responsible positions, and that due regard is paid to geographical and gender representation so that the Secretariat fairly reflects the cultural diversity of our planet. That also requires staff who can perform their functions in both the working languages of the Secretariat, as well as use the other official languages.

I spoke of continuity and change. There is much at the UN that must continue – our excellent work in development, humanitarian relief, and in crisis response, to take but three examples. We must continue to improve our ability to mount effective peace-keeping operations (currently they take too long to deploy and are uneven in quality). The UN is, and must continue to be, a forum where the rich and powerful can commit their strength and their wealth to the cause of a better world. And it must continue to provide the stage where great and proud nations, big and small, rich and poor, can meet as equals to iron out their differences and find common cause in their shared humanity. The UN will only succeed as a recourse for all and not the instrument of a few.

And to be that, the UN must embrace sensible reform. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “you must be the change you wish to see in the world”. What is true for individuals applies also to institutions. The UN is no exception. If we want to change the world, we must change too. And I respectfully suggest that managing change is best done by someone who knows how to do it – who values and respects the traditions and principles of the institution he serves, and who understands that at the UN the diplomacy of management is as important as management itself.

A new Secretary-General must also do everything possible to build on the reforms achieved in recent months. And we must change in promoting democracy and good governance as essential to development – we now have a Democracy Fund to help us do that, financed not just by the rich West but by countries like India. The UN must stand up for human rights everywhere, ensuring that the new Human Rights Council fulfils its responsibilities more effectively than the over-politicized Human Rights Commission it replaced. And we must not let conflicts reignite when the peacekeepers have left: we must work in the newly-created Peacebuilding Commission to ensure that conflict gives way to development and to democratic institution-building so that peace is truly sustainable. These are institutions in which Member States and the Secretary-General will have to work hand in glove. Equally important, the doubling of the budget of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights will permit us to make a difference in operational terms where it counts – in the field, not just in the conference room in Geneva.

It is too early to say how effective these new changes will be — the proof of the pudding is in the eating. But we now have a recipe that should work.

And there are other obvious tasks for a new Secretary-General. The first is to ensure that the UN is organized to be ready to tackle a vast range of problems effectively, and to be prepared for new and unpredictable ones – three years ago, who had even heard of the grave risk of avian flu?

As an immediate task, the new Secretary-General must work together with States on the unfinished business of management reform, especially to ensure ethics, accountability and transparency, together with truly independent audit oversight. I would focus on building issue-based coalitions on specific practical problems (management inefficiencies, procurement policies, information technology, outsourcing) that have little to do with ideological politics. There is enough going on to say that our interest in reform is far from over. If the recent changes and the necessary future ones can be brought to fruition and made to work effectively, they will go a long way to setting in place a structure that will allow us to move into the future with renewed confidence, so our next Secretary-General can concentrate on implementation.

Development must be a major priority for the UN. Let us not forget that at the Summit, leaders from donor and developing nations alike made a strong and unambiguous commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, which for the most part are not on course to being met. They devoted a separate section of their Declaration to the compelling problems of Africa. We must hold them to their commitments, and work to ensure that the world develops mechanisms that should make successful and sustainable development more likely. Not all of this will happen at the UN – the WTO and the Bretton Woods institutions, in particular, have a key role to play – but the UN remains indispensable as the place where political agreement can be reached on development goals, and where the agenda is set on issues that affect the well-being of the overwhelming majority of the world’s people, and where the voice of each of you is heard on that agenda.

I have, I hope, painted a picture of the UN of the future as firmly anchored in its achievements, but eagerly engaged in transforming itself in the light of changing circumstances. A refurbished UN, built on the strong foundations laid down in 1945, buttressed by the innovations and achievements of the last sixty years, and renovated to take account of the problems that we have uncovered in the course of dealing with the real challenges of the changing world outside.

Realistically, it will probably be a UN that is more sharply focused on areas where it has a proven and undoubted capacity to make a difference. It will, for example, continue to be the first port of call to coordinate the world’s response when major humanitarian disasters strike. It is currently the most successful practitioner, and will likely remain the means of choice, to monitor peace treaties. And when territories must be administered while political solutions evolve and the modus operandi for lasting peace are established, the world will continue to turn to the UN since it transcends any one Government’s interests but acts in the name of all.

It will not, I imagine, lead military interventions – peacekeeping excepted – although its legislative bodies will undoubtedly remain the primary source of legitimacy for any such interventions. But where others have the capacity, the resources and the will to keep the peace – NATO in Afghanistan, the EU in Bosnia, though not yet the AU in Darfur – the UN should stand aside and bless their efforts. And where the task – enforcing peace in Iraq, for instance – is clearly beyond us, we should offer political counsel and humanitarian assistance, but let wars be fought by warriors, not peacekeepers.

Above all, perhaps, I can see no other entity that could, with the same efficiency and objectivity, provide the means to address the gaps and the cracks in the façade of the international system, through which many of the twenty-first century’s problems – from environmental degradation to global epidemics to human rights abuses to international terrorism – would otherwise prosper.

So much for the architecture. But, as the old saying goes, a house is not a home. Something more – something extremely important, although not quite so tangible — is needed before we can be happy that our Organization is all it can be in the twenty-first century.

At this time of turbulence and transformation, the new UN must encapsulate the 21 st century’s equivalent of the spirit that informed its founding.

It must amplify the voices of those who would otherwise not be heard, and serve as a canopy beneath which all can feel secure.

The UN of the future must never forget that it is both a child and a source of hopes for a better world – hopes that all human beings share.

To achieve this, those of us who work for the new UN must know when to speak up … and when to listen. The UN belongs to its Member States, and no task is more important for a Secretary-General than to listen to the representatives of the Member States, while taking his own independent decisions with the interests of all before him. That is why I am here today.

Above all I wish simply to say that I hope to be at your service, and I respectfully request the opportunity to be invited to serve.

And that, I think, is an appropriate note on which to turn the floor over to you, for your own questions and comments.

The following questions are intended to elicit information on your qualifications, vision, and priority goals as a Secretary-General candidate. In formulating this questionnaire, we have given consideration to areas of particular concern to global civil society groups. The questionnaire also reflects the selection criteria developed by the UNSGselection.org campaign. For more information on the campaign, see www.UNSGselection.org.

Mr. Tharoor has responded to the questionnaire. Below are the questions and his responses:

1. Overview: In what ways have your past experiences, positions, and duties promoted or demonstrated a commitment to the principles of the United Nations?

ST: I have been privileged, in my 28 years of service to the United Nations, to work in a wide variety of areas integral to its principles – protecting and assisting refugees, notably at the peak of the Vietnamese “boat people” crisis, and conducting humanitarian operations; coping with the many challenges of peacekeeping at the end of the Cold War; serving in the Secretary-General’s office during Kofi Annan’s transformative first term; and now managing and leading a large department that I was appointed to reform, while conceiving and articulating a vision of the Organization’s role in the world. In the process I have seen, from the inside and the ground up, most of the major types of challenges with which a Secretary-General can expect to be faced. I believe I can handle them well. I offer both continuity and change: continuity with the best traditions of the United Nations, change because change is a constant in our Organization.

I believe an effective United Nations is the indispensable global institution for our globalizing world. And a vital task of the next Secretary-General will be to ensure that the institution is ready for the challenges of the 21st century, building on the changes Kofi Annan has already introduced but prepared to deal with the unpredictable challenges of tomorrow. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “you must be the change you wish to see in the world”. What is true for individuals applies also to institutions. The UN is no exception. If we want to change the world, we must change too. And I suggest, in all humility, that managing change is best done by someone who knows how to do it – who has demonstrated a profound commitment to the Organization, who values and respects the principles of the institution he serves, and whose record has translated that respect into an active and sustained commitment to results.

2. Peace and Security: In the past two decades, the UN’s peacekeeping operations have grown to become one of its largest and most prominent functions. What aspects of the current debate on peacekeeping, as reflected, inter alia, in the Brahimi Report on Peacekeeping Operations, are especially important for creating more accountable and effective forces in addressing the most severe challenges to peacekeeping and peacebuilding?

ST: Clearly the maintenance of international peace and security is a primary function of the United Nations, and when you speak of the “current debate”, it is fair to say that the Organization’s many successes in this area often seem to be overlooked. Over the years, more than 170 UN-assisted peace settlements have ended regional conflicts. And in the past 15 years, more civil wars have ended through mediation than in the previous two centuries combined, in large part because the UN provided leadership, opportunities for negotiation, strategic coordination and the resources to implement peace agreements. Yet, of course, the UN has also acted unwisely at times, and failed to act at others, resulting in failures and setbacks that are common knowledge.

That said, there are many areas in which UN peacekeeping and peacemaking operations must be improved. A great deal has been done in recent years to make peacekeepers more accountable, from the establishment of a “zero-tolerance” policy for sexual harassment on UN missions, to the establishment of mechanisms to report and address misbehaviour. Vitally important in this process has been the Zeid Report, which — among other things — applied real pressure on Member States to ensure that those found guilty of crimes or breaches of discipline while on UN service are prosecuted by their governments (do not forget that the UN itself has no jurisdiction over its soldiers on matters of pay or discipline).

But more needs to be done, beginning with the completion and proper implementation — by both the Secretariat and UN Member States — of the standard operating procedures that are in train. A body of peacekeeping best practice is being developed, and this development must be enhanced and enforced.

On the political level, it is important to reinforce the trend of the last five years, of the Secretary-General insisting that the UN’s legislative bodies take seriously the resource and mandate requirements that UN’s experts determine are needed. In a nutshell, this is based on the Brahimi report’s maxim of telling the Security Council what it needs to know, not what it wants to hear. And while a good Secretary-General must sometimes oblige the Member States to accept politically unpalatable truths about what is needed to protect civilians or disarm combatants, he must also find ways to build their trust in the Secretariat’s ability to manage complex and difficult tasks. Governments must know that when they entrust their taxpayers’ money or their citizens’ lives to the UN, the net result will be a much improved chance of peace.

All the peacekeeping successes of the UN depend on three things: a realistic mandate that is doable and worth doing; resources (financial, human and military) that are commensurate with the mandate; and a third element on which both mandate and resources are dependent — political will. Without political will you will not get a strong and feasible mandate and you will not get the resources to fulfill it, so you end up either putting a superficial bandage on a deep wound, as happened to us in Bosnia, or not going in at all, as happened in Rwanda, or pulling out too soon, as happened in Somalia. So the fundamental challenge is to ensure that we conceive of our operations realistically, not give in to the minimalism of “what the political traffic will bear”, and insist that the Council back us fully when they send us in.

There are many problems that have not been solved since the Brahimi Report was written. We need to mount effective peace-keeping operations more rapidly: currently they take too long to deploy and are uneven in quality. We need to bring the Western countries back into peacekeeping in a bigger way – currently the armies of the developed world are largely not serving under the blue flag. I do believe that we are the most successful practitioner, and will likely remain the means of choice, to monitor peace treaties. And when territories must be administered while political solutions evolve and the modus operandi for lasting peace are established, the world will continue to turn to the UN since it transcends any one Government’s interests but acts in the name of all. But where others have the capacity, the resources and the will to keep the peace – NATO in Afghanistan, the EU in Bosnia, though not yet the AU in Darfur – the UN should stand aside and bless their efforts. And where the task – enforcing peace in Iraq, for instance – is clearly beyond us, we should confine ourselves to political, electoral, and constitutional assistance (as well as humanitarian and development work where feasible) and let wars be fought by warriors, not peacekeepers.

But, as recent history makes clear, it would be foolish to imagine that a well-supported end to hostilities will somehow organically lead to a stable nation. One important development arising from last year’s World Summit was the establishment of the Peacebuilding Commission. This body aims to address the problem that many conflicts resume within five years after the peacekeepers have left – as proven tragically yet again by East Timor — so we need an institution that includes the development bodies, the World Bank, as well as the Security Council and the troop contributors, to ensure a continuum from conflict through peacekeeping to development and democratic institution-building. When it is fully operational, the Commission should provide the legislative support and oversight needed to enable UN peacekeeping to merge seamlessly with the kind of institution-building and capacity-building that is traditionally the work of bilateral donors, UN agencies and NGOs, and is essential to the rebuilding of societies that have been decimated by war. The Peacebuilding Commission is not yet fully operational, and a priority task of the UN’s next Secretary-General must be to work closely with Member States to ensure that peacebuilding becomes an integral part of the UN’s peace and security responsibilities. If the new Commission does its work well, it could be a major tool to ensure that both peace and development are sustainable in formerly conflict-ridden countries.

3. Protecting Civilians: The UN Charter opens with, “We the peoples of the United Nations,” yet the organization remains a primarily intergovernmental body. The UN Secretary-General therefore is responsible to both the citizens of the world and the Member States. Where is the threshold between the UN’s (and the Secretary-General’s) obligations to protect civilian populations and to respect national sovereignty?

ST: You’re right — the UN Charter opens with, “We the peoples of the United Nations,” yet we act as if it’s “we, the governments”. But in fact we can’t protect people without governments. The Secretary-General has an exhortatory role, but no armies of his own; to be able to protect civilians, he needs the political will of Member States in the Security Council to intervene where civilian populations are being abused. In his historic speech on intervention made before the General Assembly in 1999, Kofi Annan boldly raised the question of the morality of intervention and the call of conscience, and challenged member states to resolve the tensions between state sovereignty and their responsibility to protect ordinary people. This led to the adoption by the World Summit last year of a new global norm – the “responsibility to protect”. In doing so, world leaders acknowledged that sovereignty confers not only privileges but also responsibilities. And foremost amongst them is the responsibility to protect the well-being of your own citizens from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. If you fail to do that, then the world has the responsibility to protect your victims. But it is not easy to define the threshold your question seeks, not least because it must in the end be Governments who define that threshold in practice – and they are likely to do so only on a case-by-case basis.

Let us not forget that the sovereignty of States must be properly understood and respected — they are, after all, the “owners” of the Organization and their support and commitment is essential if the UN is to achieve its objectives. States must take pride in, and ownership of, the work they undertake collectively, through the Secretariat, for the betterment of humankind. And the UN Secretariat’s new chief must ensure that the UN continues to be a forum where the rich and powerful can commit their strength and their wealth to the cause of a better world and a stage where great and proud nations, big and small, rich and poor, can meet as equals to iron out their differences and find common cause in their shared humanity.

But the Secretary-General must also ensure the UN provides the means to address the gaps and the cracks in the façade of state sovereignty, through which many of the twenty-first century’s problems – from environmental degradation to global epidemics to human rights abuses to international terrorism – would otherwise prosper.

And finally, and at the same time, the Secretary-General must fight to retain the 21st century’s equivalent of the spirit that informed the UN’s founding. He must amplify the voices of those who would otherwise not be heard, and never lose sight of the problems facing the vast majority of humanity. He must remain true to the “we, the peoples,” in whose name the UN Charter was signed. No Secretary-General can afford to forget for a moment that the UN is both a result and a source of hopes for a better world – hopes that all human beings share. That is the context within which the question you raise must be pursued.

4. Human Rights: The current Secretary-General has written, “[The framers of the UN Charter] decided to create an organization to ensure respect for fundamental human rights, establish conditions under which justice and the rule of law could be maintained, and ‘promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.’” During the past ten years, the Secretary-General has initiated and supported substantial reform of the UN’s human rights machinery in order that human rights could be given its rightful institutional emphasis as one of the three pillars of the United Nations. If you were selected as the next Secretary-General, what specific steps would you take to follow through on these processes?

ST: Although it is not perfect, one of the premier achievements of the UN’s first sixty years has been the establishment of a comprehensive and truly admirable international human rights treaty regime. The time has come to turn our collective attention from drafting norms and standards to finding ways to implement them effectively. It is time to move from creation to consolidation.

Having been involved in Kofi Annan’s efforts to make human rights issues a centerpiece of his tenure, I can readily appreciate how fragile the institutional accomplishments of the reform process are and how much careful attention and support they still need to take firm root. For this reason, I think it essential for the new Secretary-General to focus on how to make the human rights reforms of recent years survive and thrive. A great deal has been achieved on several levels: the High Commissioner’s Office is in infinitely better shape than it was in 1997, with significant additional resources having been committed to it; we have the new Human Rights Council; and there has been the overall dramatic change of the place human rights occupy in various areas of the UN’s daily work (even in the Security Council). But institutional consolidation is needed or the mainstreaming can be reversed, the Human Rights Council may fail and the High Commissioner may become marginalized within the Organization. I promise, therefore, to pay sustained attention to these matters, in order to ensure that the hard-fought gains of recent years in the human rights arena are not lost.

Despite the fact that it has some experience of running international tribunals to examine gross violations of human rights, the UN is not, and nor should it be, an international policeman, charged with enforcing international law. Rather, the day-to-day respect for universal human rights that we would all want to be the hallmark of the twenty-first century will only come about when States and their citizens act in concert to insist that these rights are respected.

There are times when a Secretary-General must use the bully pulpit to insist that human rights are respected, and if I am elected I will not shy away from these confrontations. But equally important will be the creation of a full partnership between the UN Secretariat, States and civil society aimed at identifying and addressing actions that undermine or threaten the dignity and respect that is the birthright of every human being. Over the years, at the UN and in my own personal writings and statements, I have not hesitated to state my strongly-held conviction that human rights are of fundamental importance to people in the developing countries of the South. All too often, objections to the applicability of human rights standards are voiced by authoritarian rulers and power elites to rationalize violations that sustain them in power. The authentic voices of the South know how to cry out in pain; those voices must be heeded. It is also essential to broaden our perspectives of human rights and to recognize that the perpetuation of poverty is itself a violation of those rights: as has been well said, human rights begin with breakfast. As Secretary-General, I would seek to use my influence to promote greater awareness of the human rights of vulnerable populations such as internally displaced persons, migrants and members of religious and cultural minorities.

The next Secretary-General must work tirelessly to ensure that the UN’s legislative processes focused on human rights are not over-politicized, and that human rights NGOs and experts have all the access they need to those processes. As these processes gain credibility, the issue of human rights will increasingly receive global respect and be accorded its rightful place as the third pillar of the UN edifice. This will depend greatly on the behaviour of the UN’s membership, but the capacity of a committed and focused Secretary-General to influence that behaviour should not be underestimated.

We at the United Nations must continue to integrate human rights into every area of our core activities relating to peace, security, and development, and to work with non-State actors, whose vigilance will be essential to that purpose. The recent doubling of the High Commissioner’s budget should mean that we can make a difference in operational terms in the field, and not just in the conference rooms in Geneva. The extra resources allocated to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights must be used to increase the Secretariat’s capacity to identify human wrongs, to provide the technical advice and support necessary to set in place national mechanisms to address them, and to negotiate these mechanisms into existence. I will strongly support the independence of the High Commissioner and help strengthen her with the resources she needs to do her work to the world’s satisfaction.

5. Development: What are the main elements of an effective development strategy, and in which areas should ECOSOC, as opposed to international financial institutions, play a leading role? What specific role should the Secretary-General play in promoting the development agenda?

ST: The one thing we’ve learned from decades of trying to promote development is that there is no magic formula and each country has to define its development strategy in its own national context. Naturally, in defining its strategy, each country will need to situate itself in the international and regional contexts and work out ways of coping with external forces, often beyond its control. The most often cited success stories of recent times – China, India and Vietnam – point to the success of nationally-owned and designed strategies which sequence policy in an appropriate and calibrated way.

But that doesn’t mean the UN is, or can be, a spectator. Development remains a crucial objective for the organization, going back to the Charter’s determination that the UN should promote ‘better standards of life in larger freedom’. Understanding and coping with the complexities of globalization as well as promoting sustainable development are among the key challenges for the United Nations, especially in ECOSOC, which must work to ensure that the world develops mechanisms that should make successful and sustainable development more likely. Not all that is needed will happen at the UN – the WTO and the Bretton Woods institutions, in particular, have a key role to play – but the UN remains indispensable as the place where political agreement can be reached on development goals, and where the agenda is set on issues that affect the well-being of the overwhelming majority of the world’s people, and where the voice of each Member State is heard on that agenda.

The United Nations provides a platform where different concerns – economic, social, environmental and political – can be considered holistically. It provides a forum where governments, practitioners, non-state actors including civil society and the private sector can help in understanding and promoting development objectives. Over the years, particularly in the 1990′s, through its various Summits and conferences, the United Nations has established frameworks and set targets and timetables for measurable development goals, none more important than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The United Nations and ECOSOC, in particular, need to keep this development agenda under constant review and provide the political impetus to realize the MDGs. Development approaches, as defined through the UN processes, stress the need to promote full employment and decent work, protection of the environment, protection for the vulnerable and marginalized, promotion of gender equality as well as respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The UN has also been sensitive to the impact of public health concerns, conflict, and other political and social issues on development. It is only in the United Nations that such a multi-dimensional view is possible. The elaboration of a much broader perspective than is possible within the other specialized agencies underscores the added value of the UN and ECOSOC.

The next Secretary-General will have a crucial role in promoting this development agenda, by being its strongest and most prominent advocate. He has to use his ‘bully pulpit’ to encourage Member States, both from the North and the South, to fulfill their commitments to development. The SG needs to encourage greater engagement, facilitate the process of reaching consensus at times of apparent deadlock, remind member states of their commitments, encourage greater participation of the stakeholders and get the entire UN System to weigh in with the best expertise available to tackle the complex issues which confront us in the development arena. I will never allow Member States to forget that the UN would not be itself if it did not seek to serve the mass of suffering humanity – to wipe the tear from the eye of the hungriest little girl in the poorest country.

6. Governance: Given the current criticism of the UN for a lack of transparency, accountability and democracy, what are the key opportunities in the UN system for increased democratic governance, allowing all actors – Member States, international organizations, and NGOs – fair representation while ensuring effective decision-making?

ST: The United Nations was created by leaders who were determined to make the second half of the twentieth century different from the much-troubled first – forty-five years in which the world had suffered two world wars, countless civil wars, brutal dictatorships, mass expulsions of populations, and the horrors of the Holocaust and Hiroshima. They drew up rules to govern international behaviour, and founded institutions in which different nations could cooperate for the common good. Their idea — now called “global governance” – was to create an international architecture that could foster international cooperation, elaborate consensual global norms and establish predictable, universally applicable rules, to the benefit of all – as an alternative to the military alliances and balance of power politics that had wreaked such havoc in the preceding five decades. The new United Nations was created to stand for a world in which people of different nations and cultures would look on each other, not as subjects of fear and suspicion, but as potential partners, able to exchange goods and ideas to their mutual benefit. The UN was to be a place where small states and big would be able to work as sovereign equals, pursuing common objectives in a universal forum. And it would provide a means to address what we sometimes like to call ‘problems without passports’ – problems that cross all frontiers uninvited (climate change, drug trafficking, terrorism, epidemics, refugee movements and so on) – and whose solutions also can have no passports because no one country or group of countries, however rich or powerful, can tackle them alone.

It is the resolution of these problems that remains at the very core of the UN’s activities. And so, in 2006, I would argue that the need for a universal means of global governance, a mechanism for international cooperation — indeed, let us call it by its name, for a United Nations — is stronger than ever.

Many players will have an important role to play if that need is to be fully, or at least substantially, met. Governments, certainly, are key to that success. But equally important will be the role of civil society. In no small way, it is the guardian of the reform of the international system. It must use its voice and its expertise to help shape the collective achievements of the United Nations and, of course, to call for change where change is needed. It must do so despite the opacity of some of the UN’s systems, and despite the limitations placed by the inter-governmental machinery on the representation of NGOs. The UN – especially its Security Council — still is better at advocating democratic governance than at embodying it.

So it is civil society that will have to watch over world leaders in the coming months and years to ensure that the decisions the United Nations takes contain no empty promises. This is a grave responsibility, but it is one that I believe civil society is uniquely suited to taking up, on all our behalves, in our universal affirmation of democratic, participatory action. For myself, if elected, I pledge the Organization to greater transparency, higher ethical standards and public accountability; but it is up to the public – the media and civil society – to keep alive our integrity in what we do and how we do it.

7. Gender: How can the UN better promote gender equality and women’s human rights, both at the Secretariat and at the operational level? What specifically would you do to strengthen both the gender mainstreaming efforts at the UN as well as the gender “architecture,” i.e. the agencies charged with advancing gender equality and women’s human rights? How do you envision reaching the UN goal of 50/50 gender balance in the Secretariat?

ST: I’m proud to stand on my record as a Head of Department – a Department with 57% women in professional positions (including a majority at the D-1 level and above) — in affirming that the gender issue is one where I have “walked the talk”. There is a lot more that I can learn about gender mainstreaming efforts at the operational level, and about the work of each of the separate components of the “gender architecture” you mention, but on the basic question, I know where I stand and my commitment to serious and senior female representation in the UN is a matter of record. I’m proud of the fact that the advancement of women has long been a priority for the UN and that the defence and promotion of women’s rights is inextricable from the Organization’s raison detre.

On the architecture, I am awaiting the recommendations of the High-level panel on system-wide coherence, and without in any way disparaging the efforts that each unit has made so far, I will give strong and sympathetic consideration to any recommendation they might make to create a new UN women’s agency in the UN, which would take these efforts a qualitative step beyond present levels.

On the second part of your question, you might recall that Article 8 (Chapter 3) of the Charter of the United Nations provides that the United Nations shall place no restrictions on the eligibility of men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of equality in its principal and subsidiary organs. Complete compliance with this Article within the Secretariat, and the full participation of women in all aspects of the work of the Organization, are imperative, not only for reasons of equity, but also to enhance Secretariat effectiveness and the credibility and the leadership role of the United Nations in advancing the status of women worldwide.

As Secretary-General, I would take specific steps toward reaching the goal of 50/50 balance in the Secretariat, including in senior and policy-making posts, as mandated by the General Assembly, through the introduction of special measures and intensified efforts towards this objective — including by asking managers and Governments for nominations of qualified women candidates for all posts. In accordance with the Security Council’s landmark resolution 1325 on women and peace and security, I will also give priority to developing the right tools to facilitate gender mainstreaming in our peacemaking and peacekeeping work. That also means a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual abuses of any kind, whether in the workplace or in the conduct of peacekeeping operations. I am also aware that the UN does not have enough female SRSGs and Special Envoys. I believe the record of those women who have led our operations in the field is more than good enough to warrant an increase in the number of such appointments of women leaders.

As a UN manager, I an aware that several factors have contributed to the slow progress in improving the status of women in the Secretariat, including recruitment and selection processes, accountability of programme managers, and the working climate and culture in the Organization. If I were elected Secretary-General, I would make it a priority to elaborate creative new strategies for achieving gender parity, building on the efforts of the past few years. Some of these initiatives would include more intensive identification of suitable candidates through targeted outreach to Member States, particularly developing, underrepresented and unrepresented countries; broadening of career development opportunities for women, including temporary assignments to higher-level posts and enhanced skills training; gender training of both men and women at all levels at Headquarters and in the field to promote gender sensitivity in the workplace; making heads of department and office accountable for achieving 50/50 gender distribution; facilitating work/life policies and creating greater opportunities for job rotation and mobility for women.

I would also give emphasis to appointing qualified women to senior positions at Headquarters and in the field, and in my immediate office, as I would wish to set an example for programme managers to follow. To begin with, I pledge to make every effort to identify a suitable female Deputy Secretary-General, one whose experience and credentials will bring stature to the position along with the advantages of her gender.

8. International Justice: How will you support and strengthen the UN’s and Member States’ commitment to international justice mechanisms such as international criminal tribunals, including the International Criminal Court (ICC)?

ST: In keeping with the World Summit’s adoption last year of the responsibility to protect populations from crimes against humanity, I would seek to be a strong advocate of this emerging international norm. Sovereignty confers not only privileges but also responsibilities. And foremost amongst them is the responsibility to protect the well-being of your own citizens from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. If you fail to do that, then the world has the responsibility to protect your victims – and to ensure that you do not enjoy impunity for your crimes. This is where the mechanism of international criminal tribunals – flawed, uneven and mixed though our experience of them has been – is essential. That said, it must be recognized that the ICC, while a vital and laudable milestone on the road to a truly universal system of international justice, is not a UN institution and its success depends on the Member States who are its contracting parties. It is striking to note that institutions and regimes like the ICC, OPCW, and the Landmines Convention have emerged outside the UN but are supportive of its larger purposes and principles, and that they have done so essentially through the creativity and imagination of civil society. As the Security Council’s Darfur resolution showed, it is also noteworthy that countries which are not prepared to accept the ICC as a UN body do recognize its relevance in supporting UN objectives in specific instances. As Secretary-General, I would do everything in my power and within my means to promote mechanisms of international justice, but I would be obliged to respect the positions of the UN’s legislative bodies and of the Member States of the Organization in judging how far the institutions of the Secretariat can be used to support these bodies.

9. Environment: How can the UN provide more comprehensive and coherent management and monitoring of the multilateral environmental agreements? How can the UN strengthen a sustainable development-oriented agenda throughout both the Secretariat and at the country level?

ST: The World Summit Outcome is one of the more recent reiterations, at the highest levels, of the need to galvanize action to promote sustainable development. The subsequent steps that have been taken both by the Member States and the SG, in particular through the establishment of a High-Level Panel on system coherence, have included a process for simplifying the current system of managing and monitoring the multilateral environmental agreements. This is a complex issue, since each of these agreements is a legally binding instrument with different contracting parties. However, it is clear that all the Multilateral Environmental Agreements, especially the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, have demonstrable links with each other. A good model for coherence will have to take into account both the differences as well as the synergies of these agreements. It is apparent that unified Secretariat support would go a long way in building on the strengths of the Conventions, especially in the area of providing strong scientific and analytical capacity.

Your second question, on promoting a sustainable development-oriented agenda at the country level and within the secretariat, deserves better than a glib answer, and yet it is difficult to be specific. I believe that the tools at our disposal — advocacy, policy support, operational activities in the field and coordination of UN system activities — have to be used more effectively to mainstream sustainable development in every country. Sometimes, the weight of the multiple challenges before the UN looks daunting and it appears that the political crisis of the day overwhelms everything else – the urgent too often trumps the important. It is essential to acknowledge how central to sustainable, and indeed sustained, development a robust environmental framework is. To my mind, its design and maintenance must involve key actors which, apart from Member States, include the corporate sector (the United Nations Global Compact is a constructive innovation here with which I would persist), the scientific and academic community (let us not forget that the last Nobel Prize for Chemistry recognized achievements in decreasing pollution) and even the UN’s own field workers (who have lived with, and not always lived in harmony with, the environment). As to the Secretariat, my own staff knows me as an ardent conservationist, encouraging the recycling of paper and even the re-use of the blank portions of routing-slips and messages! If elected Secretary-General I would want to take this attitude further across the system, promoting “green buildings” at UN offices and applying environmental concerns to such matters as the purchase of UN vehicles, double-sided photocopying and the wastage of air-conditioning and electricity on holidays and weekends. These seemingly trivial initiatives would collectively make a difference; even more important, they would set an example across the UN system and to Member States. The environment is a long-standing concern of the UN and we need to be unflinching in the fight to protect the environment without compromising on the needs of our generation and those of our children.

10. Disarmament and non-proliferation: What institutional changes are needed within the United Nations, in particular with respect to the role of the Secretariat, to improve the capacity to respond to global challenges posed by nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, missiles and other means of their delivery, and the risk of their acquisition by terrorists?

ST: First of all, let me be clear that I’m not an expert on every issue, and these are areas when we can and should defer to the experience, expertise and wisdom of the specialized bodies established for this purpose, specifically the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. That said, I am committed to ensuring that the United Nations continues its work in devising and elaborating upon a vigorous framework of treaties and international law which recognize, and help forestall, the links between illicit financial transfers, commerce in drugs and access to weapons of mass destruction by those intent upon using them for terror.

The international community has identified the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, including the possibility that terrorists may gain access to them, as the greatest threat to international peace and security. The United Nations is uniquely placed to play a leading role in confronting this threat. A number of international treaties, like the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and the Chemical Weapons Convention, provide the multilateral framework for combating the threats of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We need to universalize and effectively implement them. In April 2004, the Security Council passed Resolution 1540, which has obliged States to enact legislation to ensure that non-State actors are prevented from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction and the means of their delivery.

The United Nations and its Member States have to work in harmony to build on these successes. While the First Committee of the General Assembly continues to deliberate these issues and adopt decisions on them, the Conference on Disarmament has been unable to do any substantive work for almost a decade now. The structured discussion on the various issues on its agenda this year has imparted something of a new momentum and could, I hope, lead to ending the deadlock on the CD’s programme of work as well as on the commencing of FMCT negotiations, in case the concerns and priorities expressed by the CD members are taken on board. The UN Disarmament Commission managed to hold a substantive session in 2005 after a gap of two years. Even without producing consensus-based recommendations, UNDC can perform an effective brainstorming function to catalyze further action in the First Committee and thevCD.

As one who was actively involved in Kofi Annan’s decision in 1997 to re-establish the Department of Disarmament Affairs, I am in favour of increasing the capacity of the UN Secretariat to respond creatively to contemporary WMD threats. But this is critically dependent on the mandate given to us by Member States. Even within the present mandate, we can and should take advantage of the experience, expertise and wisdom of the specialized bodies working in this domain, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Key parts of the United Nations, like UNDP, have added a new dimension to the Secretariat’s involvement with disarmament and non-proliferation by relating development to security, especially in the context of small arms and light weapons. The Secretariat is also assisting in preparing for two significant review conferences, later this year, on the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and the Inhumane Weapons Convention, which require productive results.

Even without a specified mandate for supervision or verification, the Secretariat can play an active role by providing analytical presentations and disseminating information to create greater awareness about current issues. It can act as a clearing house for sharing of best practices and provide assessments on whether all concerned are taking the specific measures required in line with their obligations under international instruments and the relevant Security Council resolutions to prevent WMD proliferation and the risk of their acquisition by terrorists. I do believe that the quest for peace, disarmament and development, free from the threat of WMD proliferation, must be pursued by a committed Secretariat and by Member States, in cooperation with scientists, strategic thinkers and members of peace movements (which is why I’m happy that the NGO community has kept up the pressure for more to be done in this area). The voluntary efforts of civil society need to be supplemented by the UN Secretariat playing a crucial supportive role in these multilateral processes. Not only do we provide various services to the multilateral disarmament institutions and processes, we also compile useful reports and conduct relevant studies which help Member States in their deliberations. Issues relating to disarmament and non-proliferation affect the security of all the states, which means that the multilateral setting provided by the UN and its specialized agencies offers the most effective forum to address them, in a manner which takes into account the concerns of all.

11. UN Reform: The UN has been involved in reform discussions for the past two years. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the current Secretary-General’s reform recommendations (i.e. “In Larger Freedom,” March 2005)? What are the most important reforms, and what role should the Secretary-General play in promoting those reforms?

ST: My answer emerges from many of my responses to earlier questions in this dialogue, and I do not want to repeat myself. As a serving Secretariat official, I naturally stand behind the Secretary-General’s proposals. But I believe that, if elected as his successor, one of my first tasks will be to take stock of the lessons learned in the reform process and move forward in a constructive way to bring about the changes that are needed to restore the world’s faith in the Organization. We need reform, not because the UN has failed, but because it has succeeded enough over the years to be worth investing in. It is too early to say how effective the new changes already agreed by Member States will be — the proof of the pudding is in the eating. But, thanks to Secretary-General Annan’s efforts, we now have a recipe that should work.

The UN must be more sharply focused on areas where it has a proven and undoubted capacity to make a difference. No task is more important than reinforcing the UN’s operational capacity — to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals (which for the most part are not on course to being met), to mount effective peace-keeping operations (see my response to question 3 above), and to respond urgently to humanitarian crises (I know from my own experience with refugee work that we are doing well there, but can become the gold standard for emergency relief). Reform also means innovation: we must do more to promote democracy and good governance as essential to development – and, little noticed in the recent reforms, we now have a Democracy Fund to help us do that, financed not just by the rich West but by countries like India.

The management of the UN requires renewal, as well as an end to any lingering practices of cronyism and nepotism. As the head of the UN, I would ensure the strengthening of the international civil service, insisting that staff of both sexes, of the highest competence and integrity, are appointed to responsible positions, with the best and the brightest representatives of the cultural diversity of our planet. As an immediate task, the new Secretary-General must work together with States on the unfinished business of management reform, especially to ensure ethics, accountability and transparency, together with truly independent audit oversight.

There’s a great danger that the East-West divide of the Cold War is being replaced by a North-South divide at the UN, as developing countries resist what they see as a rich-country agenda. The new Secretary-General must promote dialogue across the lines – geographic, political, ideological – and work with Member States to search for common solutions. I believe an effective United Nations is essential as the indispensable global institution for our globalizing world. I would focus on building issue-based coalitions on specific practical problems (management inefficiencies, procurement policies, information technology, outsourcing) that have little to do with ideological politics. And I’d present member states with politically achievable proposals, knowing I’d have to implement my mandates within the means they’re willing to provide.

At the same time, let us never forget that the UN will only succeed as a recourse for all and not the instrument of a few. I have already quoted Mahatma Gandhi’s conviction that “you must be the change you wish to see in the world”. I hope to be that change agent, and to focus on building issue-specific coalitions across the North-South divide, so we can deliver practical solutions to real problems rather than allow ourselves to be mired in turf battles.

12. UN Leadership Roles: How would you distinguish between the roles of the Secretary-General and the Deputy SG? What qualifications would you look for in a candidate for DSG? Do you already have anyone in mind for the post?

ST: We have had two Deputy Secretaries-General so far, and each has been very different, in terms of personality, skills, background and therefore job description. I would look for a deputy who complements my experience as an insider, my strengths as a leader, as a communicator, and as a fairly experienced manager within the system. I would want somebody with a different sort of profile, different strengths in terms of professional abilities and background, from a different geographical region and ideally a different gender – an outsider who could bring governmental experience, international diplomatic experience, and management experience from outside the U.N. system. And I think that if somebody very different from me is elected, that person should bring a very different kind of deputy. Certainly somebody coming from the outside should look for a deputy who is a strong insider who knows how to make the system work. But I do not think you can start off with a job description and impose this on a deputy – you look at individuals who complement your strengths and see how you can share the workload in a way that brings out the best in both of you.

13. South versus North – Mediating Role of Secretary General: Progress on key issues is often undermined by tension between developed and developing countries. What role can the Secretary-General play in addressing that divide? What experience do you have that would aid you in the considerable task of achieving the compromises and building the consensus necessary for meaningful action?

ST: I have partly addressed this issue in responding to your question about reform above. As a candidate from a developing country I would naturally hope to be able to relate to the countries of the G-77 and the NAM as a citizen of one of their members. Though I have never worked for the Government of India, I am honoured and gratified by its nomination of me and I hope to benefit from the active support of such an influential player on the world stage, particularly on issues of importance to the developing world. But, as I have stated before, if elected I would be an Indian Secretary-General, not India’s Secretary-General. I would be accountable to all 192 Member States, whether of the North or the South, and I hope to approach my responsibilities with conviction and independence, above all as an international civil servant pledged to support both the North and the South to deliver results that benefit all. Ultimately, north and south are perspectives dependent entirely on where one sees oneself: I dare say there is a little of both North and South in almost everyone at the United Nations.

14. Role of NGOs/Civil Society: What role should civil society and other non-state stakeholders play in the work of the UN? Do you support a greater consultative role for NGOs in intergovernmental decision-making processes, or a decreased role? What measures should a Secretary General take to improve UN-civil society relations?

ST: I believe the time and care I have taken in responding to these very exhaustive questions from a coalition of NGOs is itself an indication of how seriously I take the role of civil society and non-State stakeholders in the work of the United Nations. In devising my proposals and expressing the ideas articulated in the 13 previous questions, I have found the imagination and contribution of non-State stakeholders not only essential, but fundamental. I would like to take a fresh look at the report of the Cardoso Panel, which has essentially been languishing since it was submitted, to see what more can be done to resurrect those of its proposals that could bring about positive change in the place of civil society organizations within the UN framework. In the Department of Public Information, I have developed and maintained excellent relations with the hundreds of NGos affiliated to DPI, and I have been proud to offer our Organization as a convening forum where the United Nations can listen to and be enriched by the ideas of civil society. I hope that, as Secretary-General, I can broaden even further the openness of that forum.

I trust that the experience of the dialogue we have conducted through this questionnaire will both be valuable in itself and the occasion for further dialogue. I look forward to hearing the reactions and comments of your members to the propositions I have set forth above. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to engage with some of the most important issues facing the United Nations as it elects its next Secretary-General.

Name of Source: shashitharoor.com

Reasons of State, a highly-praised study of Indian foreign-policy making;
India From Midnight to the Millennium, widely hailed as one of the best books ever written on contemporary India and cited by President Clinton in his address to the Indian Parliament;
“Are Human Rights Universal?”, a rejection of Third World arguments against the universality of human rights, published in the World Policy Journal;
“Should Peacekeeping Go Back to Basics?”, published in Survival at the end of the first post-Cold War phase of UN peacekeeping, analyzing the challenges facing UN peacekeeping in the new era;
“The Role of the Secretary-General,” an analysis of the opportunities and limitations of the job of Secretary-General of the United Nations, published by the Swedish Government on the occasion of the centenary of Dag Hammarskjold;
“Why America Still Needs the UN,” published in Foreign Affairs in the fall of 2003, just after the Iraq war, arguing the case for continued US engagement with the United Nations.
“The Next U.N. S-G: Impossible Job?” by Shashi Tharoor, in MaximsNews.com (17 May 2006)
“What the United Nations Needs” by Shashi Tharoor in Newsweek International, (4 September 2006)

Name of Source: shashitharoor.com

A man who has straddled many spheres, Dr. Shashi Tharoor is currently the Minister of Parliament from the constituency of Thiruvananthapuram and also the Minister of State for External Affairs in the Government of India.

The Beginning:

The son of proud parents Chandran and Lily Tharoor, Shashi was born in London on the 9^th of March, 1956. His educational background only added to his passion for diversity. Montfort School in Yercaud , Campion School in Mumbai, St. Xavier’s Collegiate School in Kolkata, followed by St. Stephen’s College, Delhi for Bachelor of  Arts in History, and  The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Massachusetts are his alma mater. Shashi always stood first in his class (barring 8^th grade, where he stood 2^nd!) and received two Master’s and a Ph.D from his graduate school by age 22-a Fletcher record.

The U.N chapter

Years of experience( 32 to be precise) at the United Nations saw Shashi Tharoor rise to the post of Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information. His association with this prestigious organization began with the UN High Commission for Refugees in Geneva. Later as a senior official at the UN Headquarters in New York, he headed various key peacekeeping missions around the globe. A senior advisor to the Secretary General, Shashi officially left the U.N on 31^st March, 2007.

India calling

On 19 March 2009, Tharoor was declared as the Indian National Congress candidate of the Trivandrum constituency in Kerala for the General Elections in 2009. This “ elite outsider” as his opponents used to call him, cut across all party lines and won a thumping victory, defeating the rival by a margin of around 100,000 votes (the biggest ever by any candidate in Thiruvananthapuram in over 30 years). On 28 May 2009, Shashi Tharoor was sworn in as Minister of State of the Union Government of India as External Affairs minister.

A man of letters and words

Dr Tharoor is also the award-winning author of eleven books, as well as hundreds of articles, op-eds and book reviews in a wide range of publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, Time, Newsweek, The Times of India and The Hindu. He has served for two years as a Contributing Editor and occasional columnist for Newsweek International.

His collection of twelve books showcase the landscape of his literary talents. Be it a non-fiction book on India-Pakistan cricket( Shadows Across the Playing Field-2009) or a biography of Pandit Nehru or fictional short stories( The Five Dollar Smile 1990), Shashi has always found time for his love of writing. The renowned books on India ‘The Elephant, the Tiger and The Cellphone’(2007), The Great Indian Novel(1989) and From Midnight to the Millenium(1997) are essential readings for anyone embarking on a journey of getting to know India or trying to understand it better. His novel ‘Show Business’( 1992) was made into the motion picture ‘Bollywood’.Shashi Tharoor’s books have been translated into French, German, Italian, Malayalam, Marathi, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Spanish.

Dr Tharoor is an internationally known speaker on India’s recent transformation and future prospects, globalisation, freedom of the press, human rights, literacy, Indian culture, and India’s present and potential influence in world politics. Shashi serves on the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the board of trustees of the Aspen Institute, and the Advisory Boards of the Indo-American Arts Council, the American India Foundation, the World Policy Journal, the Virtue Foundation and the human rights organization Breakthrough. Dr Tharoor has been appointed an International Adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva for the period 2008-2011. He is also a Fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities and the Patron of the Dubai Modern School.

Some important recognitions:

• In 1976, at age 20, he won the Rajika  Kripalani Young Journalist Award for the Best Indian Journalist under 30.In 1990, he won the Federation of Indian Publishers-Hindustan Times Literary Award for the Best Book of the Year for The Great Indian Novel, which also won a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1991 for the Best Book of the Year in the Eurasian Region.
• In 1998, Tharoor was awarded the Excelsior Award for excellence in literature by the Association of Indians in America (AIA) and the Network of Indian Professionals (NetIP).
• In January 1998, Dr. Tharoor was named a “Global Leader of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
• He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in International Affairs from the University of Puget Sound in May 2000 and a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the University of Bucharest, Romania, in May 2008. In 2004, he was awarded the prestigious Pravasi Bharatiya Samman( India’s highest honour for overseas Indians)

Recently Dr. Tharoor received the Pride of India Award from the Zakir Husain Memorial Founation, Nagpur. The Hakim Khan Sur Award for National Integration was presented to him by Maharana of Udaipur on March 15, 2009.

The future holds promise:

Success never seems to elude Dr. Tharoor. A firm head on his shoulder, ‘Minister Twitter’ is grounded in his passion for pursuing his responsibilities whole heartedly. He is the face of change we need in our governance today.

At the Secretary-General’s request, in January 2001 Mr. Tharoor accepted what was initially intended as a temporary assignment as Interim Head of the widely-criticized Department of Public Information (DPI). His hands-on leadership of that Department and the initiation of far-reaching reforms led the Secretary-General to confirm him as Under-Secretary-General in 2002. As head of Department, Mr. Tharoor has:

• transformed what was seen as an ineffective and bureaucratic department, weighed down by a plethora of General Assembly mandates, into a focused, streamlined and results-oriented centre of excellence;
• become the first Secretariat leader to successfully close down UN offices, by shutting down nine United Nations Information Centres in Western Europe in the face of considerable political and bureaucratic opposition and replacing them with a strong and viable European regional center;
• devised a new and clear mission statement for the staff of his Department, conceived a new operating model for DPI and reorganized its functioning, including through eliminating non-essential functions and services;
• vastly improved co-ordination within the UN system and across departments, funds, programs and agencies in the dissemination of public information, notably through the establishment of an inter-agency UN Communications Group; and
• set new standards in results-based management and the creation of a culture of evaluation, establishing an Annual Program Impact Review for all managers in the Department that requires them to produce measurable reports on the effectiveness of their products and services (this has now been adopted as a model for the rest of the Organization).

In this capacity, Mr. Tharoor has also served on the Senior Management Group, the Policy Committee, the Iraq Task Force, the Steering Committee on Reform and Management, and the Working Group on Post-Cold War Security. Bilingual in English and French, he was appointed United Nations Coordinator for Multilingualism in 2003.

Prior to this assignment, Mr. Tharoor served as the Director of Communications and Special Projects in the Office of the Secretary-General (1997-2001) and as a senior advisor to the Secretary-General. In this role he:

• Advised the Secretary-General on a number of strategic issues and undertook sensitive assignments, including accompanying him on official missions abroad and monitoring the performance of various UN offices and departments on behalf of the Secretary-General;
• Served on various working groups and task forces on institutional reform and organizational strategy;
• Oversaw the opening up of the Organization to public scrutiny, through the issuance of new guidelines for dealing with the media, and
• Devised and led the Communications Group, an effective vehicle for coordinating information-sharing across the United Nations system.

His previous assignment at UN Headquarters in New York was as Special Assistant to the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations (1989 -1996). In this eventful period:

• From 1991 to 1996, he led the team in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations responsible for the United Nations peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia — traveling frequently to the region to oversee the work of the field missions and negotiate with leaders on all sides of the conflict, managing the Headquarters political and military staff assigned to these missions, attending daily Security Council meetings on the issue in order to send policy guidance to the field, drafting reports of the Secretary-General to the Security Council, liaising daily with Member States as the situation evolved, managing relations with NATO and leading the Task Force on the former Yugoslavia;
• He worked with two successive heads of United Nations peacekeeping operations in managing the challenges of unprecedented growth and evolution in peacekeeping at the end of the Cold War, serving as Chief of Staff for the Department of Peacekeeping, supervising issues of budget, staffing and administration, and overseeing the plans for the expansion of the Department and its merger with the Field Operations Division; and
• He directed the staff working on the evolution of peace-keeping policy and strategic issues, articulating a new vision of the UN’s peacekeeping principles and practices in the changed global environment, and set up the nucleus of what has since become the Lessons Learned and Best Practices Units.

Mr. Tharoor’s United Nations career began in 1978 on the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva. He was assigned as Head of the UNHCR office in Singapore (1981-1984) during the peak of the Vietnamese “boat people” crisis. Amongst his significant accomplishments in this role, he:

• Oversaw a reduction in the refugee caseload by over 80%, principally through greater success in resettlement through a variety of innovative and creative methods;
• Played a leading role in devising creative solutions to a number of problems relating to refugees rescued at sea, including those related to refugees rescued by ships flying flags of convenience and those belonging to developing countries;
• Administered the refugee camp, introducing practices of camp management through refugee elections of their own leaders; and
• Handled discreetly and successfully several non-Vietnamese refugee cases, including the first Polish refugees after the declaration of martial law in December 1981 and the first group of Acehnese to surreptitiously enter Singapore. These problems were solved without publicity and without creating international embarrassment – notably the case of a Polish seaman who jumped ship and took refuge on board a US destroyer, nearly sparking off a diplomatic crisis between Singapore and the USA which Mr. Tharoor defused.

Success in Singapore brought him back to UNHCR Headquarters as Deputy Chief of the Secretariat, a unit dealing with UNHCR’s governmental relations, in particular with the UNHCR Executive Committee. He then became the organization’s first-ever Executive Assistant to the Deputy High Commissioner, a role in which he helped the Deputy High Commissioner devise and implement a new approach to coordinating the organization’s various operational activities worldwide.

Mr. Tharoor is the award-winning author of nine books, as well as numerous articles and op-eds in a wide range of publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune and Newsweek. His books and essays include, Reasons of State, a highly-praised study of Indian foreign-policy making, India From Midnight to the Millennium, widely hailed as one of the best books ever written on contemporary India and cited by President Clinton in his address to the Indian Parliament, “Are Human Rights Universal?”, a rejection of Third World arguments against the universality of human rights, published in the World Policy Journal, “Should Peacekeeping Go Back to Basics?”, published in Survival at the end of the first post-Cold War phase of UN peacekeeping, analyzing the challenges facing UN peacekeeping in the new era, “The Role of the Secretary-General,” an analysis of the opportunities and limitations of the job of Secretary-General of the United Nations, published by the Swedish Government on the occasion of the centenary of Dag Hammarskjold; and “Why America Still Needs the UN,” published in Foreign Affairs in the fall of 2003, just after the Iraq war, arguing the case for continued US engagement with the United Nations.

Born in London in 1956, Mr. Tharoor was educated in India and the United States, completing a PhD in 1978 at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he received the Robert B. Stewart Prize for Best Student. At Fletcher, Shashi Tharoor helped found and was the first Editor of the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs, a journal now in its 31 st year.

In January 1998, Mr. Tharoor was named by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as a “Global Leader of Tomorrow”. He is the recipient of several awards, including a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was named to India’s highest honor for Overseas Indians, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, in 2004. He serves on the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the board of trustees of the Aspen Institute India, and the Advisory Board of the World Policy Journal. He is also a Fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities. Shashi Tharoor is the father of twin sons who are 2006 graduates of Yale University.