The UN in the 21st Century with Secretary-General Candidate Dr. Ashraf Ghani

This meeting was a further opportunity to have a conversation with one of the official candidates on the future challenges of the world organization and the role of the Secretary-General.

The event is the fourth part of the IPA Secretary-General Candidate Conversation Series.

Dr. Ghani’s presentation took place on the day after the Security Council’s third straw poll of the growing slate of candidates. It follows previous conversations with SG candidates Jayantha Dhanapala (Sri Lanka), Shashi Tharoor (India), and Ban Ki-Moon (Republic of Korea). This event presented another important opportunity for participants to engage with one of the official candidates on the future challenges of the world organization and the role of the Secretary-General. Please note, the International Peace Academy has no position on the process and does not endorse any specific candidate.

Ashraf Ghani, Chancellor of Kabul University, is Afghanistan’s nominee for United Nations Secretary-General. Dr. Ghani led the UN-brokered Bonn Agreement that resulted in the first democratic elections in Afghanistan’s history. As Finance Minister, from 2002 to 2004, he carried out a series of impressive reforms amid the many challenges of Afghan reconstruction. In 2004, he led a team of experts that prepared Securing Afghanistan’s Future, a plan lauded by the international community as the most comprehensive program ever presented by a developing country to the international community. For his exemplary service in the rebuilding of Afghanistan and in setting a model of international development partnership he has been widely praised.

Since leaving office, he has been called upon to apply the state-building frameworks he created and championed in Afghanistan to countries as diverse as Sudan, Nepal, and Lebanon, as well as to several international institutions. In his public service to Afghanistan, Dr. Ghani drew on his extensive World Bank experience in East and South Asia: he spent ten years working in China, India, and Russia. His work is also grounded in his celebrated academic research, which has focused on state-building and social transformations. In 1985, he undertook a year of fieldwork researching Pakistani madrasas as a Fulbright Scholar. He has also studied comparative religion.

This event was chaired by IPA’s President Mr. Terje Rød-Larsen.