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Your chance to interact with UN Secretary-General candidates

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Your chance to interact with UN Secretary-General candidates

Ahead of the appointment of a new UN leader, UNA-UK has provided members of the public with an opportunity to submit questions to candidates via a new online portal, available in nine languages.

Participants are invited to vote on which questions they want put to Secretary-General candidates during two unprecedented hustings debates in New York (13 April) and London (3 June).

The portal invites the public to rank 12 questions in order of preference, before submitting up to three questions of their own. It has been developed by the UNA-UK – co-founder of the 1 for 7 Billion campaign – in partnership with Global Citizen and Avaaz.

Vote now - the top ranked questions will be put to candidates

Designed for an international audience, the survey is available in nine languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

For the past 70 years, the UN Secretary-General has been chosen in secret. This opportunity for citizens around the world to interact with candidates represents a major success for UNA-UK and our 1 for 7 Billion campaign, which is calling for a fair, open and inclusive appointment process.

UNA-UK and 1 for 7 Billion welcome recent improvements to the appointment process which paved the way for the upcoming General Assembly meetings with candidates (from 12-14 April). Such meetings represent a significant step forward in terms of transparency, but will allow limited time for civil society interaction. Our initiative builds on these positive developments, ensuring voices of the public are heard, not just the voices of UN member states.