This year’s election process for the position of the next UN Secretary General is by far the most open and transparent in the UN’s history following 70 years of closed-door negotiating and secretive lobbying. On Tuesday for the first time, ten out of twelve candidates took part in two televised debates where they unfolded their visions for the future of the UN and set out their plans to tackle the numerous challenges the organization faces today (…). It does seem that it is the year of woman -at least as far as the election is concerned- and the four candidates that clearly came on top were all women : Irina Bokova, Helen Clark, Christiana Figueres and Susana Malcorra. Read more …