Publications /
Opinion

Back
Download PDF
The Secretary-General of Everything and the United Nations of Nothing: How Mission Inflation Has Weakened the UN and Why the Next Secretary-General Must Put Peace First
Authors
Ferid Belhaj
August 25, 2026
Related topics: 
International Relations
International Organisations
Diplomacy
Security & Defense
Conflict resolution
International Law
Economy
Sectorial policies and structural transformation
International Cooperation

The next Secretary-General should begin with an act of institutional rebellion: refuse to become the Secretary-General ofeverything. Over three decades the office's political and administrative reach has spread across sustainable development, climate, health, migration, digital governance, financing, gender, food systems, and a still-growing list of global priorities. These issues are not unimportant; the trouble is that institutional ambition has simply outrun institutional capability. Call it mission inflation: more agendas, more coordination mechanisms, more summits and declarations, and a correspondingly diffuse sense ofwho is actually responsible for what.

This essay draws on the post-1945 architecture of the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, and the specialized agencies to argue for a return to functional specialization and institutional subsidiarity. The Secretariat should gradually withdraw from fields where other institutions already hold stronger financing instruments, technical depth, or operational authority, while the Secretary-General preserves political capital for the tasks that have no substitute: preventive diplomacy, mediation, collective security, and the preservation of international peace. At a moment of renewed great-power rivalry and multiplying wars, a stronger United Nations may need a more disciplined Secretariat — one prepared to do less, in order to become indispensable again in theone area the Charter actually gave it.

RELATED CONTENT

  • Download PDF
    The Secretary-General of Everything and the United Nations of Nothing: How Mission Inflation Has Weakened the UN and Why the Next Secretary-General Must Put Peace First
    Authors
    Ferid Belhaj
    August 25, 2026
    The next Secretary-General should begin with an act of institutional rebellion: refuse to become the Secretary-General ofeverything. Over three decades the office's political and administrative reach has spread across sustainable development, climate, health, migration, digital governance, financing, gender, food systems, and a still-growing list of global priorities. These issues are not unimportant; the trouble is that institutional ambition has simply outrun institutional capabil ...
  • Hegemonic Architecture: Strategic Dominance in the Twenty-First Century
    Authors
    Marcus Vinicius de Freitas
    August 25, 2026
    Predictions of American decline have become increasingly prevalent. The United States has run persistent trade deficits for decades, but its public debt now exceeds its annual economic output. Meanwhile, and new centers of industrial and technological power continue to emerge across Asia. Yet despite these developments, no country has so far replaced the United States as the main organizing power of the international economy. Conventional explanations explain this in terms of U.S. m ...
  • Why Local Expertise Matters for Africa's Development
    By Helmut Sorge & Arup Banerji
    August 14, 2026
    In this Episode, Arup Banerji discusses why local expertise—not just international advice—should be intentionally embedded in African development policy. He cites cash transfer programs a ...
  • The European Parliament Resolution and the Moroccan-Spanish Crisis
    Authors
    Abdallah Saaf
    August 13, 2026
    The Resolution adopted by an overwhelming majority of elected European officials in Strasbourg on June 10, 2021, on "the violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the exploitation of minors by the authorities in the migration crisis in Ceuta" (2021/2747/RSP), could not fail to leave its mark.Decoding the ResolutionThe Resolution shocked Moroccans to such an extent that it was quickly set aside at the time, as if there were a wish to forget it as fast as possible. ...
  • The Mecca Agreement: A First Step Towards a New Regional Security Architecture?
    Authors
    Bilal Mahli
    August 11, 2026
    The Mecca Agreement: A First Step Towards a New Regional Security Architecture? On 7 August, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Agreement, a trilateral defense pact aimed at strengthening collective security and defense cooperation between the three countries. At its core lies a collective defense commitment under which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all three. While many details concerning its practical implementation remain unclear, the agreeme ...
  • Download PDF
    A Distant Battlefield, Tangible Costs. The War on Iran's Toll on the Global South
    Authors
    Len Ishmael
    August 7, 2026
    THE END OF AN ERAThe US-Israeli war on Iran, a 'little excursion' envisaged to be over within a matter of weeks, has entered its fourth month. Shock waves ripple across the globe. This war is just one in a series of recent crises which have fractured the international community, making the decades of the 2020's among the most disruptive in recent history. Each crisis compounds the deleterious effects of those which came before. The war in Iran is no exception. It abruptly stalled ec ...
  • The Fear of War in Europe - Part 2
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    July 27, 2026
    Is Europe Prepared for War?European public opinion is moving from treating a major conflict as unthinkable to regarding it as a possibility for which governments must prepare. Attention is increasingly focused on Russian hybrid operations, vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure and the risk of fragmentation within NATO. European defence policy is consequently undergoing a rapid transition from post-Cold War complacency towards preparations for high-intensity warfare. Recent ...
  • The Fear of War in Europe - Part 1
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    July 15, 2026
    We Are Watching You In April 2026, the UK Ministry of Defence revealed that it had tracked a covert Russian submarine operation apparently intended to map critical undersea cables and pipelines in the North Atlantic and the North Sea. A Russian attack submarine and two specialised intelligence vessels operated by the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, commonly known as GUGI, were reportedly monitored for four weeks by the Royal Navy, including HMS St Albans and P-8 Poseidon ...
  • Download PDF
    Global South Agency: From Victimhood to Systemic Architecture
    Authors
    Marcus Vinicius de Freitas
    July 10, 2026
    For much of the post-war period, the Global South was framed as an object of history, defined by dependency, constrained by structural asymmetries, and confined to the margins of global decision-making. That narrative, once empirically grounded, is now no longer adequate. A profound yet uneven transformation is underway. The Global South is no longer only reacting; it is increasingly shaping rules, institutions, and narratives.This Policy Brief argues that the Global South is thus t ...