Broadway Intelligence Ltd – Global Investigations & Risk Analysis » Why Mia Mottley Should Be the Next Secretary-General of the United Nations

Credit: The Economist

The United Nations is entering a perilous period. Wars grind on, multilateral trust is frayed, the climate crisis deepens, and development goals slip out of reach. Not to mention American ambivalence – if not, outright hostility – to the institution, and the rising spectre of Great Power conflict. The next Secretary-General must be more than a manager of bureaucracy or a broker of lowest-common-denominator compromises. The UN needs a leader who can connect moral urgency to institutional reform, who can speak for the vulnerable while persuading the powerful, and who can translate vision into workable finance and policy. That leader is Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados.

Mottley brings a rare combination of qualities: head-of-government experience; a proven record of systems-level reform on climate and development finance; the credibility of a small-island leader intimately acquainted with existential risk; and the rhetorical force to reset global agendas. She is also the kind of appointment that would expand the UN's legitimacy, both by elevating a leader from the Caribbean and by finally selecting a woman to the world's top diplomatic post. With António Guterres due to complete his second term on 31 December 2026, the 2026 selection is an opportunity to choose a Secretary-General who matches the scale and character of the crises we face. Mia Mottley fits the bill, perfectly.

A voice that made the world listen—and act

Many leaders talk about 1.5°C; Mottley made the world feel it. At the opening of COP26 in Glasgow, she delivered a spare, unsparing message: "1.5 is what we need to survive… Two degrees is a death sentence" for frontline nations from the Caribbean to the Pacific. The line resonated through the summit halls because it fused science with stakes, and it came from a prime minister who governs on those front lines. The statement has since become a moral yardstick for climate diplomacy.

Crucially, Mottley's climate leadership has not been confined to speeches. She helped catalyse momentum for the historic decision at COP27 to establish a new Loss and Damage fund, an instrument long sought by vulnerable countries to address harms that adaptation cannot prevent. That breakthrough, later operationalized with the World Bank as interim host, was not a final victory. But it was a hinge that turned years of advocacy into a concrete mechanism and a platform for further reform. The next Secretary-General must use the post's convening power to ensure that the fund delivers predictable, adequate, and rapid support. Mottley knows the politics, the institutions, and the constituencies well enough to precisely do that.

If climate action keeps stalling on money, it is because the system that allocates capital is misaligned with planetary risk and development imperatives. No contemporary leader has done more than Mottley to translate this structural critique into a workable blueprint. Her Bridgetown Initiative lays out a concrete pathway to unlock trillions for climate and development without sinking vulnerable economies in unsustainable debt. The agenda is practical: rechannel unused Special Drawing Rights for liquidity; overhaul debt architecture so countries can invest in resilience; expand concessional lending for climate adaptation; and de-risk private finance at scale. It is also political: it acknowledges power realities while reframing climate finance as a macro-stability challenge, not a charity appeal.

What makes Bridgetown distinctive is its fusion of technocratic detail with coalition-building. Mottley did not publish a white paper and walk away; she worked with the UN Secretary-General on a shared platform for SDG-aligned financial reform, helping to mainstream the ideas into UN and G20 discourse. In April 2023, the UN and Barbados jointly highlighted six action areas to transform a “broken” financial system; since then, pieces of Bridgetown have informed debates on multilateral development bank (MDB) capital adequacy, debt clauses tied to climate shocks, and innovative sources of revenue. A Secretary-General Mottley would arrive with a ready-made, globally recognized reform agenda and the credibility to drive it from New York to the G20 capitals.

The UN speaks for all nations, but it has not always looked like the whole. A Secretary-General from the Caribbean would correct a long-standing imbalance [no leader from the region has ever held the office] and would send a signal that the concerns of small states are not peripheral but central to global security and prosperity. The selection process has long observed an informal regional rotation; whatever the geopolitics of 2026, a candidate who broadens representativeness while commanding respect across blocs strengthens the institution’s legitimacy at a moment of strain.

Mottley’s record as prime minister underscores that small states can be big actors. Under her leadership, Barbados executed a constitutional transition to a parliamentary republic in 2021, calmly, democratically, and with global attention, demonstrating institutional confidence and political craftsmanship. That step was not a symbolic flourish. It was a statement about self-determination, post-colonial maturity, and constitutional reform delivered without upheaval. The skill set that manages delicate, identity-laden transitions at home transfers well to the UN’s own reform conversations.

Effective Secretaries-General stretch beyond their home region. Mottley has repeatedly shown she can convene unusual allies and keep them at the table. The Bridgetown agenda has found resonance among African finance ministers, Pacific island leaders, European development banks, and impact investors who ordinarily speak in different dialects of policy. Her push helped lift "loss and damage" from civil society demand to negotiated outcome, and her continued advocacy has focused attention on governance and speed of delivery, exactly the kind of persistent, unglamorous follow-through the UN system requires.

This coalition-building is not limited to climate. In development finance debates, Mottley has framed reforms in balance-sheet terms without losing sight of justice and vulnerability. That twin vocabulary lets her talk persuasively to Washington think tanks, Paris climate negotiators, Abuja finance officials, and Port Vila community leaders. The ability to be heard across ideological and regional lines is not a bonus trait for a Secretary-General; it is the job description.

If the UN is to survive as a relevant platform for peace and progress, its leader must be both realist and reformer. Mottley is already on record calling for the renovation of the Bretton Woods system to match twenty-first-century risks, and she has done so from inside the multilateral tent working with IMF and World Bank counterparts rather than merely denouncing them from afar. At the UN General Assembly, she has argued that the "law of the jungle" cannot govern a liveable planet, an appeal to rules, not raw power, that captures the essence of multilateralism. Choosing a Secretary-General who articulates why the UN matters, and who can renew its purpose among skeptical publics and governments, is the best investment member states can make in the organization’s future.

Skeptics sometimes relegate charismatic reformers to the role of inspirational speakers, implying a deficit of managerial discipline. Mottley’s premiership suggests otherwise. She has navigated debt restructuring, pandemic shocks, and climate disasters while sustaining domestic support and stewarding complex fiscal programs. That mix of policy detail and political durability is precisely what the UN Secretariat needs as it grapples with overlapping crises and donor fatigue. It is not enough to convene panels; the next Secretary-General must drive system coherence, enforce accountability, and focus finite Secretariat bandwidth on a few catalytic priorities. Mottley, as a sitting head of government, has already made and survived hard choices at executive scale.

There is also a legitimacy dividend in finally naming a woman Secretary-General. The UN has never had one; the optics are anachronistic, and the signal to half the planet is dispiriting. Elevating a woman with Mottley's profile would be more than symbolism. It would place a leader with a track record of championing equity across gender, race, and geography at the helm of an institution that constantly navigates those cross currents. The growing public and diplomatic appetite for a female SG is visible in an emerging field of women candidates already discussed for 2026, particularly from Latin America and the Caribbean. Selecting Mottley would align with that momentum while ensuring the choice is anchored in substance, not tokenism.

Anticipating the objections

"She's a one-trick pony, climate change is her thing": The world is more combustible than at no other time since 1945. Europe’s largest war in generations, a Middle East ceaselessly reignited, state collapse from Haiti to Congo, and a metastasizing conflict web from the Sahel to the Red Sea. The next Secretary-General cannot be a background figurehead; he or she must reclaim the UN’s core vocation—preventive diplomacy, mediation, peace operations—and be willing to use every tool the Charter provides, publicly and behind closed doors.

Mottley is a master of crisis diplomacy. As a leading CARICOM voice, she helped marshal the Community's good offices on Haiti that culminated in formation of the Transitional Presidential Council, an admittedly imperfect but essential political landing zone without which any security deployment is aimless. That process was negotiated under CARICOM auspices and acknowledged by international policy institutes as the political track the UN security authorizations must complement. And let’s not forget, climate change impacts security through food security, water competition, and mass migration. Mottley has demonstrated an ability to stitch climate to security, macro-stability, not just development.

"She comes from a small state—will major powers listen?": They already do. Mottley’s agenda has helped to reset conversations in the Bretton Woods institutions and at the UN itself. Moreover, small-state leadership can be an asset: it signals neutrality in great-power rivalries and centers the perspectives of the many countries that make up the bulk of UN membership. The test is not GDP; it is efficacy. On climate finance and system reform, Mottley has been one of the most effective leaders on the planet.

"Regional rotation will complicate her path": Yes, the UN observes an informal rotation across regional groups, and political bargaining in the Security Council will shape the shortlist. Yet rotation is not a binding rule, especially when the organization’s credibility is on the line. If member states want a Secretary-General who embodies the UN’s universality and can deliver a renewal agenda, the Caribbean is an entirely compelling place to look—and Mottley is its preeminent global stateswoman.

What a Mottley tenure could look like

Refocus peace and security around risk reduction: The SG can push the Security Council and Peacebuilding Commission toward prevention budgets that integrate climate risk, food security, and disinformation threats. A Mottley Secretariat would be uniquely placed to translate climate risk into concrete prevention programming because she has framed the problem not as morality play but as fiscal and security exposure.
Make finance the hinge of UN effectiveness: Accelerate Loss and Damage disbursements; drive adoption of climate-resilient debt clauses; push for SDR rechannelling mechanisms that are faster and fairer; and align UN development system country strategies with a coherent financing plan. Use the SG's "bully pulpit" to keep MDB capital-adequacy reforms and grant-based adaptation finance front-and-center so that COP, the G20, and Spring Meetings reinforce one another rather than operating as parallel tracks.
Rebuild trust with the Global South: Convene a standing "Vulnerable 50" dialogue among small islands, least-developed countries, climate-threatened middle-income economies that is run by the Office of the SG not an ad-hoc summit. Pair this with a new habit of reporting such as an annual "Equity and Resilience Balance Sheet" that measures the real cost of capital, shock exposure, and the pace of promised finance. Mottley’s own work has already helped to quantify these gaps; the UN can institutionalize that clarity.
Champion a legitimacy upgrade: Use the political capital of being the UN's first woman SG from the Caribbean to strengthen transparency in senior appointments, expand geographic and gender diversity in leadership, and give small-state diplomats systematic access to agenda-setting processes. This is how you reverse cynicism and make the UN feel like a platform that belongs to all.
Communicate: The UN’s problem has never been the absence of reports; it has been an inability to cut through noise. Mottley's speeches move audiences because they are plain-spoken and grounded. A Secretary-General who can connect with the global public, especially the disenchanted young, will expand the bargaining space for governments by building domestic permission for international action.

The 2026 selection is already attracting serious contenders, including women from Latin America and beyond. That is a healthy development and a sign that member states want a different kind of leadership. But this is not a generic moment; it is a moment when climate, finance, and legitimacy intersect. Mottley’s comparative advantage is exactly at that intersection: she has turned a small country into a global agenda-setter; she has turned a set of complaints into a plan; and she has turned a plan into partial institutional change—an arc she can extend from mid-sized reforms to system-level shifts as Secretary-General.

Even the recent operationalization of the Loss and Damage fund illustrates how she works. The decision to seat the World Bank as an interim host drew criticism from some activists worried about donor control, but the governance design preserved the fund’s independence. That kind of imperfect but progress-making compromise is how multilateralism actually moves—and Mottley has been willing to accept such staging posts in service of acceleration. The UN needs that pragmatism as much as it needs vision.

There is, finally, the matter of character. Mottley’s leadership radiates steadiness and candour. She tells hard truths without humiliation and invites the powerful into partnership without deference. When Barbados recognized its own republican identity, she framed the move not against anyone but for a fuller sovereignty, an approach well suited to a UN that must restore a sense of shared purpose amid Great Power rivalry.

For the United States and Europe, a Mottley appointment offers a partner who will push hard on finance reform while keeping the system anchored in fiscal realism and institutional pragmatism. For Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, she represents a leader who has carried Global South priorities into the heart of Northern institutions. For the Pacific and small islands everywhere, she is a peer who understands existential risk. For civil society and the private sector, she is a convener who speaks both languages. And for the broader global public, she is a recognizable, trusted messenger who can make the UN feel closer to daily life.

Of course, the selection will depend on Security Council dynamics and the willingness of permanent members to accept a Secretary-General who will ask them to do hard things. But that is hardly a reason to settle for a caretaker. The Council's legitimacy is also on the line. By endorsing a leader such as Mottley with demonstrated global respect and a concrete program would strengthen, not weaken, its standing.

The UN's eighth decade will test whether the world can transform its loftiest agreements into bankable action. It may even test the very durability of the UN itself. The next Secretary-General will either preside over collapse and dissolution in the face of Great Power contempt, incrementalism that history will deem as complacent, or will build the coalitions and financing that make a safer, fairer future possible. Mia Mottley has already shown the world how to do the latter by name the stakes plainly and never confusing purity with progress. Selecting her would not just make history. It would make the UN more capable of shaping it.

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Why Mia Mottley Should Be the Next Secretary-General of the United Nations

A voice that made the world listen—and act

Anticipating the objections

What a Mottley tenure could look like