PRESIDENT, Dr Irfaan Ali, on Thursday stood before the 81st United Nations General Assembly and asked the world to look beyond Guyana’s size.
This was by no means a plea for sympathy. It was him making a case on merit. Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett’s bid to become the next Secretary-General rests on qualities the world body badly needs, including character, experience, integrity and a genuine commitment to humanity.
The president put it plainly, the world will be a better place with her at the helm. The evidence strongly supports him.
Consider the record: she began her working life as a teacher before becoming Minister of Amerindian Affairs at 27. She went on to serve as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2008 to 2015 and as a director at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and she has been Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN since 2020. She also represented Guyana during its 2024–2025 term on the Security Council, including its presidencies of the council, a period that put her at the heart of debates on war, humanitarian crises and great-power rivalry. Few candidates arrive with such a balanced mix of national leadership, multilateral experience and frontline council diplomacy.
The campaign has also shown that the world is paying attention. She placed second in the first Security Council straw poll in July with nine “encourage” votes, then moved into first place in the second poll. In the third poll she again received eight “encourage” votes, which keeps her among the two leading candidates. That steady showing reflects tireless outreach. She has taken her case to almost every regional and interest grouping at the UN, from Liberia and Greece to the Forum of Small States and a CELAC dialogue, and, this week, to Egypt’s Foreign Minister on the margins of the General Assembly.
What she offers is not just experience, but a clear view of the task ahead. At the UN’s candidate town hall, she described an organisation at a crossroads, facing multiplying conflicts, a liquidity crisis, slow progress on the Sustainable Development Goals and rising humanitarian needs, and she argued that reform to make it more efficient, effective and agile is now essential. She has also named climate change and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence as challenges that demand a more responsive UN. This is the practical, results-driven thinking of someone who has spent a career getting things done.
Her election would also carry real historic weight. She would be the first woman, the first person of Indigenous descent and the first Caribbean national to lead the United Nations in its 80-year history. CARICOM Heads of Government have given her their full endorsement as the region’s candidate. Yet, as President Ali rightly stressed, her claim does not rest on where she comes from. It rests on who she is. The permanent representatives in New York know her work, her word and her will.
The president’s broader message deserves equal attention. The United Nations, for all its imperfections, must be renewed, not abandoned. The world needs an organisation in which international law restrains power, co-operation overcomes division and ordinary people can look to the future with hope. Achieving that requires a leader who understands both the halls of power and the needs of small and developing states. Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett is that leader.
Guyana has offered the world one of its finest public servants. The members of the Security Council, and the wider membership, should give her the opportunity she has earned.
