TALKING POINTS
UAE Nominates distinguished diplomat Lana Nusseibeh to UN Secretary General post
- Of the seven contenders, there are five women
- The UN may end up choosing its first-ever woman Secretary General
Abu Dhabi. The United Arab Emirates has formally nominated veteran diplomat Lana Nusseibeh to become the next Secretary General of the United Nations. The present Secretary General Antonio Guterres completes his second term on December 31, 2026. The race to the post is heating up as there are already six candidates vying to succeed Guterres.
Besides Nusseibeh, there are four other women contenders, thus making the race of particular significance as the UN may end up choosing its first-ever woman Secretary General.
The contenders are Ivonne A-Baki former Ecuadorian Ambassador; Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, also from Ecuador and former President of the General Assembly; Rafael Mariano Gross, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis, former Vice President of Costa Rica and presently Secretary General of UN Trade and Development; Olara Otunnu, former Ugandan Ambassador; Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, Guyana’s current permanent representative to the United Nations; and Nusseibeh.
The UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan submitted the nomination on October 21 to the Presidents of the UN General Assembly and Security Council.
Nusseibeh, A Seasoned Diplomat
Nusseibeh, 48, is a former UAE ambassador to the UN who has spent over a decade in international diplomacy, including during the country’s 2022-23 membership of the Security Council. If successful, she would become the first woman to lead the UN and the second person from the Middle East and North Africa to hold the position, following Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
Nusseibeh is the daughter of Zaki Nusseibeh, a senior Emirati presidential adviser who has served successive UAE leaders for decades. Her grandfather, Anwar Nusseibeh, was a prominent Palestinian politician and lawyer who served in senior government positions in Jordan.
She studied history at the University of Cambridge before obtaining a master’s degree in Israeli and Jewish Diaspora Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. Nusseibeh founded the UAE Foreign Ministry’s Policy Planning Department in 2009, becoming its first Director, and subsequently served as a Joint Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In September 2013, she became the first Emirati woman appointed as the country’s Permanent Representative to the UN, a position she held until April 2024. During her tenure, she served as President of the Executive Board of UN Women in 2017 and as a Vice President of the General Assembly. She also co-chaired negotiations concerning UN institutional reform.
Her most prominent diplomatic role came during the UAE’s membership of the Security Council between 2022 and 2023, when she twice presided over the body.
During Israel-Gaza conflict, Nusseibeh helped secure Security Council Resolution 2720 in December 2023, establishing a UN mechanism intended to facilitate humanitarian assistance to Palestinians.
She was also involved in securing resolutions condemning the Taliban’s restrictions on Afghan women working for the UN and addressing the relationship between hate speech, discrimination and international security. Following her departure from New York, she continued serving in senior positions within the UAE Foreign Ministry, becoming a Minister of State in September 2025.
The candidate is normally appointed in November-December. According to reports, there is informal regional rotation in the UN, indicating of a candidate getting selected from the Latin America and Caribbean region.
Irrespective of who is selected, the Secretary General’s responsibilities have increased and he or she has to steer the 81-year-old organization through several challenges, starting with unending wars, escalating geopolitical tensions, worsening climate change etc.
