Rebeca Grynspan, a Costa Rican economist and leading candidate for the role of UN Secretary-General, has urged the United Nations to take more calculated risks and to embrace stronger moral leadership.

Speaking at Chatham House, she criticised the UN’s risk-averse bureaucracy and argued that effective conflict mediation and preventive diplomacy cannot thrive in overly hierarchical structures.

Grynspan highlighted the organisation’s current challenges, including severe funding shortfalls that threaten humanitarian and development efforts, political deadlock in the Security Council, and increasing global scepticism over the UN’s peacekeeping capabilities.

Drawing on her experience as Secretary-General of UNCTAD, where she helped negotiate continued grain exports from Ukraine to avert a global food crisis, Grynspan emphasised the importance of decisive leadership.

She also called for Security Council reform, pointing out the absence of permanent members from Africa and Latin America, and linked the UN’s financial crisis to a broader political crisis, noting that countries such as the US have drastically reduced their contributions.

Despite these challenges, she expressed confidence that the UN can regain authority and effectiveness by adapting to the modern world and recovering its foundational purpose of promoting peace and preventing unchecked power from causing global destruction.