Prime Minister John Briceño announced Belize’s support for Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett to become the United Nations’ next Secretary-General, calling her candidacy historic for the Caribbean region.
“This year, the United Nations will select its tenth Secretary-General. Belize proudly supports the candidacy of Her Excellency Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett of Guyana, a distinguished daughter of the Caribbean. A Caribbean woman at the helm of the United Nations would be historic. But history alone is not the argument. Her record is.”
Briceño argued that the incoming Secretary-General will need to prioritise small and vulnerable states within the institution’s broader work. “The next Secretary-General will inherit an institution under strain and a world impatient for results. Small and vulnerable states must be placed at the centre of the organisation’s work, not at the margins of decisions that determine our survival. The United Nations must become more agile, more representative, and better equipped to deliver.”
He cautioned against equating institutional efficiency with genuine reform. “A leaner United Nations is not automatically a better one. Peace and security cannot be an afterthought to a budget exercise. Human rights cannot be separated from development, nor development sustained without peace. Reform must honor all three pillars of the charter: peace and security, development, and human rights as one indivisible promise.”
