GEORGETOWN, Guyana – In a historic announcement made public late Friday, South American nation Guyana has put forward its sitting United Nations ambassador, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, as a candidate to succeed António Guterres as the next UN Secretary-General. Guterres, the Portuguese incumbent who has led the global body since 2017, will conclude his second and final term at the end of 2024, opening up the top post for a new leader.
Rodrigues-Birkett, a 52-year-old seasoned diplomat, has served as Guyana’s permanent representative to the UN since 2020. She brings decades of high-level global and domestic experience to her candidacy: she previously held the role of Guyana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2008 to 2015, before moving to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a special coordinator for parliamentary partnerships. In 2017, she took on leadership of the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva, Switzerland, a post she held until her appointment to the UN ambassadorship four years later.
Announcing the nomination in a national broadcast, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali highlighted Rodrigues-Birkett’s core policy priorities for the UN, noting her vision centers on reinforcing the multilateral system, boosting the global body’s effectiveness and ability to rapidly respond to global crises, advancing inclusive global governance, and preserving the UN’s capacity to tackle 21st-century challenges.
Ali also emphasized Rodrigues-Birkett’s proven leadership during Guyana’s recently concluded two-year term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. “Our successful election to the United Nations Security Council, and the successful completion of our 2024-2025 term on that body, have demonstrated to the world that Guyana can provide leadership at various levels of the global system,” Ali stated.
Geographically, Guyana is a small Atlantic coastal nation sandwiched between Venezuela and Brazil, with a total population of under 800,000 – less than the population of many major global cities. Despite its size, its nomination adds to a growing field of candidates, and aligns with two growing pushes in global diplomacy: the long-running call for the first woman to lead the UN, and a regional claim from Latin America that the post should go to a candidate from the region under the UN’s long-standing (though not strictly enforced) tradition of geographical rotation of senior leadership posts.
To date, every person to hold the post of UN Secretary-General since the organization’s founding in 1945 has been a man. A wide coalition of member states has repeatedly pushed for a woman to break this glass ceiling in the 2024 selection process. Other high-profile women candidates already in the race include former Chilean president and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, Rebeca Grynspan, the Costa Rican head of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, and former Ecuadorian foreign minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa.
The field of candidates also includes non-Latin American male contenders, such as IAEA chief Rafael Grossi of Argentina and former Senegalese president Macky Sall. The selection process will unfold through closed-door consultations and voting across 2024, with the UN General Assembly set to confirm the next Secretary-General ahead of Guterres’ departure in December.