How To Evaluate a UN Secretary‑General Nominee in 7 Steps
A practical guide for analysts, journalists, and students to objectively assess any UN Secretary‑General candidate today
The United Arab Emirates just nominated Lana Nusseibe, sparking global debate and a flood of analysis. Understanding how to objectively evaluate a UN Secretary‑General nominee is essential for policymakers, media, and scholars alike. This guide walks you through seven concrete actions you can take right now to form a balanced assessment.
Step 1: Gather the Official Biography
Start by downloading Lana Nusseibe’s official CV from the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Look for dates, postings, and any UN‑related assignments. Cross‑check those details on the UN’s Personnel portal (un.org/personnel) to ensure accuracy. Highlight the career timeline as your reference point.
Step 2: Map Her Regional Diplomatic Track Record
Use ACLED (acleddata.com) and ReliefWeb to locate reports on UAE involvement in Sudan and the Israel‑Gaza arena during her tenure. Pull articles from LexisNexis or Google News for the past five years that mention her name alongside those crises. Plot the findings on a simple Google Sheet map to visualize the regional impact of her decisions.
Step 3: Evaluate Her Human‑Rights Stance
Search Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch archives for any statements or investigations that reference the UAE’s policies while she was ambassador. Check Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (2023) for the UAE score and note any diplomatic comments she made. Summarize the findings in a bullet list to capture the human‑rights record clearly.
Step 4: Align With the UN 2030 Agenda
Open the UN SDG Tracker (sdg-tracker.org) and identify which Sustainable Development Goals are most relevant to the nominee’s expertise. Match her past initiatives to those goals and note any gaps. Use the UN Data Explorer to pull relevant statistics and illustrate the strategic alignment of her work with the agenda.
Step 5: Scan Expert Opinions
Set up Google Scholar alerts for "Lana Nusseibe" and browse recent papers from think‑tanks like Carnegie and Brookings. Bookmark at least three reputable analyses that critique her diplomatic style. Compile a quick reference table of the expert consensus to see where opinions converge or diverge.
Step 6: Quantify Public Perception
Create a free Talkwalker Alerts (talkwalker.com/alerts) for her name combined with keywords like "Sudan" and "Israel‑Gaza". Export the last 30 days of mentions into a CSV and import into a sentiment‑analysis add‑on for Google Sheets. Record the resulting sentiment score to gauge global perception.
Step 7: Draft Your Assessment Report
Open a Google Docs template titled "UN Candidate Assessment" and populate sections for Biography, Regional Record, Human‑Rights, SDG Alignment, Expert Views, and Sentiment. Insert a SWOT analysis and cite every source using Zotero (zotero.org). End with a concise final recommendation that reflects the data you gathered.
Use the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to retrieve older statements or policy pages that may have been removed from official sites, giving you a fuller historical picture.
By following these seven steps you’ll produce a data‑driven, balanced profile of any UN Secretary‑General nominee. You’ll be equipped to write articles, brief policymakers, or contribute to academic debates with confidence. Keep this checklist handy for future nominations and stay ahead of the conversation.
