The United Arab Emirates has put forward one of its most experienced UN hands as a candidate to run the world body, nominating Lana Nusseibeh, a former ambassador to the United Nations, to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary general. The Foreign Ministry announced the nomination on Wednesday, pointing to her extensive experience with the United Nations and what it called her wisdom in dealing with current international challenges.
What the nomination delivers, in practical terms, is a Middle Eastern name added to a contest that has so far failed to produce a consensus choice among the Security Council’s most powerful members. Nusseibeh, 48, is a late entrant to the race. An informal Security Council poll had placed former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan as the narrow frontrunner, according to sources. Although Grynspan has led the informal straw polls, last week she and every other candidate received two or more opposing votes from the five permanent members whose vetoes ultimately decide the outcome: Britain, China, France, Russia and the US. Council members are now negotiating over whether to hold another poll this Friday or at a later stage.
Nusseibeh’s own record at the UN is the core of her case. She currently serves as the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs and was the first woman to represent the UAE as permanent representative to the United Nations, holding the post from 2013 to 2024. That period included the emirate’s two-year term on the Security Council, a campaign she personally led to a successful election. Diplomats in New York describe her as a competent manager, and she said she was approached by multiple countries during the last UN General Assembly to put herself forward.
Her tenure overlapped with the outbreak of the Gaza war in 2023, when she secured the adoption of Resolution 2720, paving the way for the delivery of humanitarian aid. She said she built support for the resolution by arranging a visit by council members to the Rafah border crossing so they could see the situation on the ground for themselves, describing the maneuver as part of the creative entrepreneurial diplomacy that characterizes her approach.
In her own framing, the job is about restoring the organization’s operational role rather than watching events unfold. “It’s clear that today we need a secretary-general that can recommit to the future of multilateralism and the future of the United Nations as a problem-solver rather than as a spectator to the world’s crises,” she said shortly before going public with her candidacy. She added that it is recognized today that the organization needs someone who offers generational change.
Of Palestinian descent, Nusseibeh has championed Abu Dhabi’s assertive foreign policy and its heavy focus on countering political Islam during her time as a top UAE diplomat. A victory would make her the second UN chief from the Middle East, after Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and the first woman to lead the organization, though she said she is not running on her gender. “I think it would be great if the next secretary-general was a woman but I’m not running because I’m a woman; I’m running because I am stubbornly optimistic about the future of the United Nations and I believe we need someone who is relentless in the pursuit of diplomacy to open doors,” she said. “I come from a country that is younger than the United Nations but our region is one that has been facing severe challenges,” she added.
The nomination was reported by Saudi Gazette, at https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/665638/world/uae-nominates-top-diplomat-lana-nusseibeh-for-un-secretary-general, as the race moves toward its next possible vote.